Have Tropical Cyclones that roam the Indian and Southern Pacific Oceans ever made land fall on Antartica? I have seen on a map that Severe Tropical Storm Steve made it all the way to the Southern part of Australia and then might have dissipated. Could it have hit Antartica as a tropical storm Cat 1?
Chosen Answer:
The Antarctica is a strange continent because it is centered on the pole and surrounded all around by an ocean. Both poles are places where it is cold and cold air sinks. That creates high pressures where there is little or no wind and very little precipitation. In fact, if it wasn’t for the snow, Antarctica would be like the Sahara, a desert!
But around that, in what is known at the polar front belt between the so-called polar and Ferrel cells, at roughly latitudes 60 S (and 60 N in the northern hemisphere) there are constantly low pressures (not tropical but polar ones!) that move eastward. This creates storms that made the early seafarers to call the southern latitudes for the “roaring forties” and the “screaming sixties.” This is enhanced by the fact that the waves can move uninterrupted around Antartica, thus creating incredible weather! But it has nothing to do with tropical cyclones that remains, usually, between the tropics.
by: Michel Verheughe
on: 15th September 11