Tropical Cyclone Harold SH 25

Severe Tropical Cyclone Harold was a powerful storm which caused widespread destruction in the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji, and Tonga during April 2020. It was first noted as a developing tropical low within a trough of low pressure during April 1, while it was located to the east of Papua New Guinea. Over the next day, the system moved south-eastwards over the Solomon Sea, before it was classified as a tropical cyclone and named Harold by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. The system moved into the Fiji Meteorological Service's area of responsibility on April 2 and began to explosively intensify by April 3, reaching Category 4 status by April 4 on both scales. The next day, it further strengthened into a Category 5 severe tropical cyclone, the highest rating on the Australian scale. It made landfall on Espiritu Santo on April 6. Shortly afterwards, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) upgraded it to a Category 5-equivalent cyclone on the Saffir–Simpson scale. It maintained this status for only six hours before being downgraded back to Category 4.

The system has been intercepted 12 times by SMOS swath as illustrated below:

  And when adding SMAP wind data intercepts with Harold, we get a rather dense and coherent coverage of the  wind speed structure evolution of the storm: