the track of cyclone Cheeto over the Indian Ocean sent it directly across the tiny islands of mayot as well as catastrophic Winds of more than 130 mph it bought intense rain shown by these bands with over 25 cmers causing flash flooding and landslides too seen from space you can see how mayot took the full force of the compact storm with no large land mass to dissipate it which is only now happening as the Cyclone meets the African continent it's the worst storm in 990 years to hit the islands a tiny French territory north of Madagascar
34s of the population more than 300,000 live in relative poverty many in informal settlements squeezed onto an island the same size as the a of white mayot is essentially a case study of the risk posed by storms as our planet warms tropical Cyclone is an umbrella term in the Atlantic and East Pacific they're called hurricanes in the Northwest Pacific typhoons everywhere else including the Indian Ocean tropical Cyclones storm tracks shown here going back to Victorian Times show their regular natural phenomenon the most powerful Category 5 storms here in purple occur most often as super typhoons
in Asia but the physics of climate change apply to all of them average ocean temperatures have been trending upwards for years with a notable jump in the last two storms don't appear to be getting more frequent but extra heat can increase wind speeds and warm air carries more rain we can expect more intense storms as a result and Islands really are the most vulnerable to these storms because even if we have a forecast in advance that that that storm is going to make landfall in that island people need to have somewhere safe to go to
and we need to make sure that the infrastructure is resilient so that we have the power supply and the water supply and the communications that are not impacted by that storm so the community can bounce back quick Cyclones will remain random even with climate change and islands like mayot are small targets but when chance sends a storm their way the odds are increasingly stacked against them unless they're equipped like larger richer places to adapt
