The 1881 season

Unnamed tropical depression (1881)

Unnamed tropical depression peaked at unknown kt in the South Indian between April 20, 1881 and April 24, 1881.

Radar

Reflectivity now over Unnamed tropical depression. Open it to see storms, cones and warnings on the map.

Open the live radar with storms, cones and warnings

Radar mosaic and map layers from NOAA MRMS. Boundaries from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet.

The storm

Basin
South Indian
Dates
April 20, 1881 to April 24, 1881
Peak strength
Tropical Depression
Landfall
No; closest approach 1076 km (669 mi)
Accumulated cyclone energy
0.0
Identifier
1881111S05089

Deaths and damage

No source this site reads publishes a machine-readable casualty or damage figure for a storm of this era. The National Hurricane Center’s season tables begin in 1995 and carry deaths and damage only from 2005 in the Atlantic and 2020 in both basins; the US Storm Events record begins in 1996.

Track

Time (UTC)PositionWindPressureStatus
Apr 20, 18:005.0S 89.4ENot reported
Apr 21, 00:006.0S 89.2ENot reported
Apr 21, 06:004.6S 89.4ENot reported
Apr 21, 12:005.1S 89.2ENot reported
Apr 21, 18:005.6S 89.0ENot reported
Apr 22, 00:006.2S 88.9ENot reported
Apr 22, 06:006.8S 88.8ENot reported
Apr 22, 12:007.5S 88.8ENot reported
Apr 22, 18:008.3S 88.9ENot reported
Apr 23, 00:009.0S 89.1ENot reported
Apr 23, 06:009.6S 89.3ENot reported
Apr 23, 12:0010.0S 89.5ENot reported
Apr 23, 18:0010.3S 89.8ENot reported
Apr 24, 00:0010.5S 90.1ENot reported
Apr 24, 06:0010.7S 90.4ENot reported

Other South Indian storms of 1881

What this means

A best track is the record a warning agency settles on after the storm, not what it said at the time: position, maximum sustained wind and central pressure every six hours, revised against every observation that came in later. Category is the Saffir-Simpson scale, which runs from Category 1 at 64 kt to Category 5 at 137 kt and reads wind only, so it says nothing about surge or rain. Accumulated cyclone energy adds up the square of the wind through the storm's life, so it counts strength and duration together.

Sources

Storm history from NOAA NCEI’s International Best Track Archive for Climate Stewardship (IBTrACS), which merges the official best track of every warning agency. Live storms, cones, watches and warnings from the National Hurricane Center and the Central Pacific Hurricane Center. Archived radar from NOAA’s Level II archive.