Tropical Cyclone Cebile Impresses the World While Spinning over the Indian Ocean (credit: CIMSS)

Cyclone #Cebile over the open waters of the Indian Ocean, a ferocious Category 4 storm with a large eye heading into a sharp turn, all the while no threat to land. https://t.co/qGdHTcDE3G pic.twitter.com/g522f8NHWo

— UW-Madison CIMSS (@UWCIMSS) January 31, 2018

DISCUSSION: As of the past 48 to 72 hours, Tropical Cyclone Cebile underwent an incredible transformation over the open waters of the Indian Ocean.  This was a complex tropical cyclone to forecast based on most of its trajectory being over the completely open waters of the central Indian Ocean.  As a result of this tropical cyclone remaining over the warm open waters of the Indian Ocean, it has an abundance of time to undergo what is most commonly referred to as an eye-wall replacement cycle.  It is during this period of time that the actual eye of a given tropical cyclone is physically replaced with a newer and often a clearer eye and eye wall. It is also during this period of time that there are often minor (and sometimes even substantial) changes in tropical cyclone intensity (meaning a tropical cyclone whose minimum central pressure fluctuates slightly and whose maximum wind speeds fluctuate as well).  

As shown in the animated infrared satellite imagery attached above (courtesy of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS) research team, you can see how Tropical Cyclone Cebile developed a nearly perfect eye and eye-wall for well over a 12-hour period.  In addition, towards the beginning of this particular infrared satellite imagery loop, you can see how Tropical Cyclone Cebile quickly developing what is most often referred to as an "annular cyclone" structure.  More specifically, annual structure is best defined as when a given tropical cyclone has close to or nearly-perfect symmetry in the cloud-top temperature field surrounding the eye-wall.  Thus, indicating that this tropical cyclone was both intense and had a nearly perfect energy distribution around the center, inner, and outer portions of Tropical Cyclone Cebile while it was at its annual structural state.

To learn more about other high-impact weather events occurring across the Indian Ocean and Asia, be sure to click here!

© 2018 Meteorologist Jordan Rabinowitz