(Bloomberg) -- Madagascar, the world’s biggest vanilla producer, is being struck by the most intense tropical cyclone to make landfall on the Indian Ocean island nation in 13 years, according to commercial forecaster Weather Underground.
The storm reached category-four status before reaching the northeastern coastline about 11 a.m. local time. That’s the second-most severe storm classification, which can see winds of 130-156 miles (209-251 kilometers) per hour. Rainfall could exceed 16 inches (406 millimeters) in many parts of the island during Enawo, as the southern hemisphere’s strongest cyclone this year is called, according to Weather Underground, based in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
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|'Worrisome amounts of rain'
Models “have shown some very worrisome amounts of rain falling on heavily populated regions of Madagascar,” said Jeff Masters, Weather Underground’s co-founder. “Enawo has the potential to be a top-five most damaging storm in the island’s history.”
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