Tropical Cyclone Eloïse

Tropical Cyclone Eloise swept through large parts of eastern Africa in January 2021, bringing heavy rainfall and strong winds to regions in Madagascar, Mozambique and South Africa. Eloise impacted more than 467,000 people across all regions, of which 441,690 were affected in Mozambique.

The Cyclone hit Mozambique’s central provinces hardest, which were still recovering from the devastation brought by Cyclone Idai in 2019 (OCHA 2021).

Eloise originated from a disturbance in the South-West Indian Ocean Basin, which formed into a tropical depression on 16th January and further developed into a tropical storm on 17th January. On 18th January Eloise intensified to a severe tropical storm. The storm made landfall in northern Madagascar on 19th January, causing heavy rainfalls and severe flooding. On 21st January the storm moved past Madagascar and entered the Mozambique Channel. The following two days Eloise moved across the Channel, strengthening to a Tropical Cyclone (Category 2 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale) before making landfall north of Beira, Mozambique on 23rd January. The storm rapidly weakened after making landfall, turning into a remnant low over land by 25th January and dissolving soon afterwards (EUMETSAT 2021).

Tropical Cyclone Eloise made landfall in the night of 23 January 2021 with winds of ~140km/h and gusts of up to 160km/h, bringing torrential rain and severe flooding. The storm heavily impacted Sofala, in particular Buzi area, Manica, the southern part of Zambezia, Inhambane, and Gaza provinces. Sofala was the province hardest hit by the storm, resulting in severe flooding, significant damages and high numbers of affected people (IOM 2021).

Farmland, vital infrastructure and thousands of homes were damaged or destroyed. The storm posed another devastating blow to families still trying to recover from Cyclone Idai, which struck the same regions less than two years before (UNICEF 2021).

On 22. January 2021 Gauteng Weather Chanel released a twitter post with first aerial images of the devastating impacts of Cyclone Eloise on Mozambique:

The map below shows the location of the aerial images of Gauteng Weather as well as images taken by Mozambique Red Cross. The blue layer shows the fluvial flood extent modeled by FATHOM.

Cyclone Eloise caused numerous internally displaced persons in Sofala to either flee or being evacuated into different transit centers in Beira city, Nhamatanda and Buzi.

"Those affected, including the elderly, women and young children, told ‘Notícias’ that they were queuing for a third consecutive day and feared that they would spend another night in the open, since the evacuation operations are being carried out under difficult conditions but must, according to the National Institute for Disaster Risk Management and Reduction (INGD), have safety as a first priority.” (Noticias, 25. January 2021)

After the storm, the authorities supported internally displaced persons to return home or facilitated the relocation of IDPs to more permanent sites (Protection Cluster 2021).

On 21. & 22. January 2021 floods were forecasted for the following days in Mozambique. The following maps show forecasted flood intensities, flood extents and population exposure.

Cyclone Eloise made landfall in the night of 23. January 2021, causing severe flooding across Mozambique in the following days. Following maps show modeled flood extent for 1 in 5 year return period across Mozambique.

Cyclone Eloise caused severe flooding across Mozambique. The scenes below show drone footage from East-Mozambique in the days after the cyclone made landfall.

Mozambique has a complex disaster risk setting, which becomes most obvious in the north of Mozambique, in Cabo Delgado. Since 2017, the north-eastern part of the province has been impacted by conflict, driving many people to move to the southern areas and leading to a steep increase of the number of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Cabo Delgado. Many of those have settled within flood prone areas or coastal areas exposed to cyclone impacts, exacerbating the vulnerabilities of those now facing compounding risks of conflict and climate related hazards.

A detailed analysis of conflict & climate related hazards in Cabo Delgado can be viewed through following link...

Following Web App Application contains all data layers of flood forecasts, flood extents and population exposure which are showcased in this Storymap. The Web App Application allows to explore, compare and analyse the different data sets for Cyclone Eloise.

1 in 20 years return period (left) & 1 in 5 years return period (right)

GloFas forecast of 1 in 20 years flood probabilities on 21. January 2021 (left) & 25. January 2021 (right)

Flood extent in Buzi on 26. January 2021 (left) & Flood models from 21. January 2021 (right)