The United Nations warned today, Friday, of what it called the fierce force of Hurricane "Freddy", which is about to be the longest tropical cyclone recorded in history.
"Freddy continues his amazing and dangerous journey," said a spokeswoman for the World Meteorological Organization of the United Nations, after it originated off the northern Australian coast and turned into a storm with a name on the sixth of last February.
According to the United Nations, the cyclone will be accompanied by "highly destructive winds, a very dangerous storm on land and heavy rains over large areas, not only in Mozambique but also in northeastern Zimbabwe, southeastern Zambia and Malawi."
It is expected that the volume of rain will reach from 200 to 300 millimeters, and possibly more, and this number is more than double the normal monthly rainfall rate and is added to the rain that Freddy caused the first time.
Hurricane Freddie killed 8 people, affected more than 40,000 people, and displaced about 14,000 when it passed last Tuesday over Madagascar for the second time. The same hurricane swept the island in late February, and it left 7 deaths on that day.
Freddy is a tropical cyclone that has been going on for 33 days, and once it fades, the organization's panel of climate experts will evaluate all the data to determine whether a new record has already been set, a process that could take months.
Freddy dipped below tropical storm status when he hovered over Mozambique and Zimbabwe the first time.
Freddy crossed the entire southern Indian Ocean and made landfall in Madagascar on February 21, and crossed the island before reaching Mozambique on February 24.
The last cyclones to cross the entire southern Indian Ocean were tropical cyclones "Leon Eileen" and "Hoda" in 2000.
The cyclone season in the southwest Indian Ocean runs from November to April and is marked by about 10 cyclones or tropical storms.