Fiji Islands

Near Miss!

Hurricane Alerts Fiji Islands

jyiOST of Viti Levu and other

parts of Fiji were battened

down between January 4 and

January 7 while a hurricane hesi

tated off the north-west coast.

During this time, the Yasawas

were hammered by gusts up to

116 miles per hour but the

Group as a whole missed the full

force of the hurricane.

The hurricane was born about 16 days before Fiji got its preliminary warning, when Pacific weather forecasters could see a low pressure forming north of the Solomons.

Bad weather was experienced in Papua-New Guinea and New Hebrides over this period, then slowly the depression began to move towards Fiji.

By January 6 the hurricane, now fully fledged, came to a halt some 80 miles north-north-west of Lautoka, and there it sat while Suva, under preliminary warning, and Lautoka and other north western areas of the group, sweltered under battened-down windows and stifling humid weather.

So the situation stood until the night of January 7, when by a happy change of pressure elsewhere, the hurricane slid off to SSW, well seaward of Nadi, and the alert was ended. On January 10 it was venting its spleen on the open ocean far southwest of Fiji, and promising some bad weather for the Kermadec weather men and North Auckland. Number one hurricane of the season was over as far as the Islands were concerned —although April and the the end of the hurricane season were still a long way off!

During the Fiji alert the RNZAF cleared its Sunderlands away to Noumea. TEAL’S Solent was flown to Auckland and the master of the cruise ship Oronsay, due in Suva January 7, from Auck land, headed his ship for Noumea instead —to the chagrin of the waiting Suva business-men and, doubtless, to the delight of Noumea.