NUTE

History

Tropical Cyclone Nute formed in the middle of November 1997, unusually early in the Australian region cyclone year. A tropical low organised within a low-latitude monsoon trough well to the west-northwest of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, in the far north-western part of the Australian area of responsibility. Strong equatorial wave activity associated with the powerful 1997–98 El Niño helped the disturbance consolidate over warm water, and the Perth Tropical Cyclone Warning Centre named it Nute on 18 November as it reached Category 1 strength on the Australian scale.

Steered west-southwestward along the northern flank of a mid-level ridge, Nute continued to organise and strengthened to a Category 2 system on 20 November. At its peak it had estimated 10-minute sustained winds near 100 km/h, with gusts to around 140 km/h, and a minimum central pressure of roughly 980 hPa. On 21 November the cyclone crossed the 90°E meridian, passing out of Australian jurisdiction and into the South-West Indian Ocean, where Météo-France La Réunion took over warning responsibility and renamed the system Trixie. In its new basin the cyclone held tropical cyclone intensity over open water for several more days before increasing vertical wind shear eroded its structure, and it had degenerated into a remnant low by 27 November.

Nute never approached land. Its entire life cycle was spent over the open Indian Ocean, thousands of kilometres from the Western Australian mainland and well clear of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, so no casualties, injuries or structural damage were recorded. High-seas warnings were issued for shipping in the central Indian Ocean, while North West Shelf offshore oil and gas operations were unaffected.

Sources: Bureau of Meteorology report Wikipedia