Cyclone Funso

Intense Tropical Cyclone Funso

Intense tropical cyclone (SWIO scale)
Category 4 (Saffir–Simpson scale)
Intense Tropical Cyclone Funso shortly after peak intensity on January 24, 2012
Formed	January 17, 2012
Dissipated	January 29, 2012
(Extratropical after January 28, 2012)
Highest winds	10-minute sustained: 205 km/h (125 mph) 1-minute sustained: 220 km/h (140 mph)
Lowest pressure	925 hPa (mbar); 27.32 inHg
Fatalities	At least 40
Areas affected	Mozambique, Malawi
Part of the 2011–12 South-West Indian Ocean cyclone season

Intense Tropical Cyclone Funso was a powerful tropical cyclone which produced flooding in Mozambique and Malawi in January 2012. It was the eighth tropical cyclone, the sixth named storm and the second tropical cyclone to form during the 2011–12 season. Funso was also the first intense tropical cyclone since Bingiza in 2011 and the first storm to affect Mozambique since Jokwe in 2008.

The origins of Cyclone Funso were from an area of convection in the Mozambique Channel. On January 17, a low-level circulation developed in the area as the convection organized into intense rainbands. An upper-level anticyclone provided favorable conditions for development, including weak wind shear and good outflow. The system encountered warm sea surface temperatures, and favorable inflow from the south of its circulation was expected to increase after Subtropical Depression Dando dissipated over southern Africa. Late on January 18, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) issued a tropical cyclone formation alert, indicating a high chance of the system becoming a tropical cyclone. At 0000 UTC the next day, Météo-France (MF) classified it as Tropical Disturbance 8 about halfway between Mozambique and Madagascar in the northern Mozambique Channel. About six hours later, the agency upgraded the disturbance to a tropical depression, after the convection became better organized. The JTWC had also begun issuing advisories on the system by that time, labeling it Tropical Cyclone 08S.