Special Weather Bulletin

The marked low pressure area evolving to the north north east of St Brandon has intensified into a tropical depression over night while moving slowly in a general south-south-easterly direction . At 0900 hours this morning it was located at about 350 km to the north east of St Brandon.

The tropical depression is evolving in a favourable environment and therefore, it will continue to intensify and become a Moderate Tropical Storm this afternoon. It will then be named JOANINHA.

The system will continue to track south-south-west passing within 150 km to the East of St Brandon Island on Saturday 23 March 2019 around mid-day. As from Sunday 24 morning, most Weather Prediction Models are recurving the system towards the south, then towards the southeast.

On this new trajectory, it will approach both Mauritius and Rodrigues and represents a potential threat to both Islands.

There is still lot of uncertainties as to it final track. But there are some indications that it will pass between Mauritius and Rodrigues on Monday early morning – with a strong likelihood that it will be closer to Rodrigues on Monday evening – passing to the south west of Plaine Corail, Rodrigues. Weather in Mauritius will gradually become cloudy with passing showers as from tonight (Friday) night. The Showers will become more frequent during the week-end. Wind will strengthen gradually with gusts of 65 km/h on Saturday 23 March 2019. Gusts will increase to reach 80 km/h on Sunday 24 March 2019.

Weather at Rodrigues will be cloudy with passing showers. The showers will be moderate to heavy as from tonight with isolated thunderstorms. Gusts will increase gradually to reach 65 km per hour on Saturday and 85 km per hour on Sunday.

The Meteorological Services is closely monitoring the evolution of this system and will regularly inform all concerned.