PETE

History

Tropical Cyclone Pete formed from a tropical low embedded in the monsoon trough over the central Coral Sea, some 700 km east of Cairns, in late January 1999. The system organised quickly and was named Pete by the Bureau of Meteorology's Brisbane Tropical Cyclone Warning Centre on 21 January, when it attained Category 1 status on the Australian scale.

Steered east-southeastward well clear of the Queensland coast, Pete moved over warm waters and continued to consolidate, strengthening to a Category 2 cyclone on 23 January. At its peak the cyclone had an estimated minimum central pressure of about 980 hPa, with maximum ten-minute mean winds near 100 km/h (around 55 knots) and gusts to roughly 140 km/h. This peak occurred over the open Coral Sea, several hundred kilometres offshore.

Maintaining its east-southeasterly course, Pete crossed the 160°E meridian on 24 January, passing out of the Australian region and into the area of responsibility of the Fiji warning centre. It held its intensity as it swept across New Caledonia on 25–26 January, the only land area directly affected. Once past New Caledonia the cyclone encountered strong vertical wind shear and cooler sea surface temperatures, and it transitioned into an extratropical low while accelerating southeastward across the open South Pacific, persisting until about 30 January.

Because its entire Australian-region track remained far offshore, Pete produced no wind or structural damage on the Queensland mainland and no casualties there. In New Caledonia the cyclone brought squally gale-force winds, high seas and localised heavy rainfall, resulting in minor flooding and some disruption to power supplies, but no widespread or severe damage was reported. No direct deaths were attributed to the system.

Pete was one of numerous systems in an unusually active 1998–99 Australian region season that also produced the far more damaging cyclones Vance, Rona and Gwenda.

Sources: Bureau of Meteorology report Wikipedia