Cyclone Sarah slow moving

The tropical depression 11F that has been sitting within the Cook Islands since last week was finally upgraded to a tropical cyclone at 3.30am and hasn’t moved in the last 12-hours. According to Met Services Maara Vaiimene, the cyclone is forecasted to move in a south south easterly direction and will affect Palmerston, Aitutaki and Rarotonga. Winds are predicted to reach between 60 – 70 km and gusting to 80km. The first special weather bulletin for the Southern Cook Islands was issued just before 1pm yesterday afternoon and is expected to lie 55 miles off Palmerston at 8pm tonight. The Police Emergency Operations Centre on Friday morning reported that Palmerston was experiencing winds between 40-50 kmph with gusts reaching up to 60k’s per hour. According to Vaiimene, one of the main concerns would be high seas coinciding with high tide, which was at 7am Friday morning and again Friday night at 7pm. Palmerston has also reported overcast weather with light rain and seas are moderate to rough.
TC Sarah at category 2, is the fifth cyclone within the Cook Islands in the past six weeks, the first being TC Nisha, then Oli which caused some damage in Penryhn, then Pat that caused devastation to Aitutaki over 2-weeks ago, then Renee that and now Sarah. Since the first special weather bulletin was issued yesterday, the cyclone was located at the letter M number 12 on the cyclone tracking map and since then hadn’t moved when the special weather bulletin number 7 was issued at 6am Friday morning. -