At a Glance

Freddy has broken the world record for the longest-lasting tropical cyclone. It formed off Indonesia in early February, then made a rare track across the entire southern Indian Ocean.After first moving over Madagascar, then Mozambique in late February, it regained strength again over the Mozambique Channel.It made its final landfall in Mozambique on March 11. It brought destructive winds, storm surge and rainfall flooding that turned deadly.

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Cyclone Freddy broke the record for the longest-lasting tropical cyclone in the world and lashed parts of Madagascar and Mozambique with flooding rain, high winds and storm surge.

F​reddy's longevity record set. Freddy made its final landfall Saturday, March 11 in Mozambique near the city of Quelimane. That topped the record the longest-lasting tropical cyclone anywhere on Earth, previously held by , which roamed the central and western Pacific Ocean from mid-August through mid-September 1994, according to NOAA's Hurricane Research Division.

Track history of Cyclone Freddy from Feb. 6 - March 13, 2023.

(Track data: Joint Typhoon Warning Center via NOAA/CIRA)

A​ committee of the World Meteorological Organization will as to whether Freddy is the new record holder.

"​One question that we will be addressing is the fact that throughout its long lifetime, the storm has periodically weakened below tropical storm status," said Randall Cerveny, rapporteur of weather and climate extremes for the WMO, in a March 10 .

C​erveny said these detailed scientific examinations may take some time.

It crushed another record for rapid intensification. Freddy rapidly intensified seven different times during its over month-long saga, . This means it gained at least 35 mph of wind intensity in 24 hours or less. The final of those rapid intensifications occurred just before it made its last landfall in Mozambique, amping up from Category 1 to Category 3 intensity.

O​ne more record may have been set. Freddy may have also set a new global record for Accumulated Cyclone Energy for any single storm. ACE is calculated by summing up a storm's intensity throughout its life cycle as at least a tropical storm. A longer-lived hurricane will have a high ACE index. A short-lived tropical storm will have a small ACE index.

A​ccording to compiled by Phil Klotzbach at Colorado State University, Freddy's ACE index reached 84.7, close to the all-time record of 85.2 from Pacific hurricane and Typhoon Ioke in 2006.

F​reddy's Incredible History

Freddy began its odyssey as a tropical storm on Feb. 6 south of Indonesia and rapidly intensified to Category 1 intensity the following day. By Feb. 11, it rapidly intensified again to Category 3. Eight days later, as a Category 5 storm, Freddy became the – as measured by the ACE index – in records dating to 1980, according to Colorado State University tropical scientist Phil Klotzbach.

Fifteen days after it first became a tropical storm, Freddy became only the second southern Indian Ocean tropical cyclone in NOAA's best track database to have reached at least Category 1 intensity and track . Cyclone Eline/Leon in February 2000 was the only other storm to do that.

Freddy then made landfall in southern Mozambique as a tropical storm on Feb. 24 and spun down quickly into a remnant low the following day.

I​ncredibly, that approximately 5,600-mile-long journey wasn't the end of it.

Instead of its remnant low fizzling over southern Africa after its late February landfall, the remnant doubled back over its previous path eastward into the Mozambique Channel and became a tropical storm again on , just over a week after its first Mozambique landfall.

According to a , less than 5% of southwest Indian Ocean cyclones have made landfall in southern Africa. Freddy did that twice with a 15-day gap in the middle.

F​reddy's Deadly Impacts

T​he Associated Press over 200 were killed in Malawi and Mozambique following Freddy's final landfall, primarily from inland flooding and mudslides. Particularly hard hit was the city of Blantyre, Malawi's second most populous city.

According to , Freddy's final landfall brought a month's worth of rain in 24 hours to parts of Mozambique. The country's National Institute for Disaster Management estimated 1,900 homes were destroyed or damaged.

Freddy's first landfall in late February affected about 171,400 people in Mozambique and flooded or damaged more than 30,000 homes, according to ReliefWeb.

I​n Madagascar, at least 17 were killed from Cyclone Freddy, including both the first landfall on Feb. 21 and from flooding as Freddy lurked just off southwest Madagascar on March 5-6. An estimated 299,000 people were affected by the storm's two encounters in the country, according to ReliefWeb.

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