The 1976 season

Tropical Storm Sue (1976)

Tropical Storm Sue peaked at 40 kt in the South Indian between December 12, 1975 and December 16, 1975, with a lowest pressure of 994 mb.

Track and intensity

The whole track of Tropical Storm Sue, colored by strength, with the other storms of the 1976 season in the same basin behind it, and its wind and pressure hour by hour. Every fix is in the track table below.

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The storm

Basin
South Indian
Dates
December 12, 1975 to December 16, 1975
Peak strength
Tropical Storm, 40 kt (46 mph), ten-minute wind
Lowest pressure
994 mb (29.35 inHg)
Landfall
No; closest approach 174 km (108 mi)
Accumulated cyclone energy
1.2
Identifier
SH071976

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
Dec 12, 00:009.2S 100.6E20 kt1004 mbTropical storm
Dec 12, 06:009.6S 101.7E20 kt1002 mbTropical storm
Dec 12, 12:0010.0S 102.7E25 kt1002 mbTropical storm
Dec 12, 18:0010.3S 103.5E25 kt1002 mbTropical storm
Dec 13, 00:0010.6S 104.1E25 kt1001 mbTropical storm
Dec 13, 06:0010.8S 104.5E25 kt1001 mbTropical storm
Dec 13, 12:0011.0S 104.8E25 kt1001 mbTropical storm
Dec 13, 18:0011.2S 105.2E35 kt998 mbTropical storm
Dec 14, 00:0011.3S 105.7E40 kt994 mbTropical storm
Dec 14, 06:0011.4S 106.8E40 kt994 mbTropical storm
Dec 14, 12:0011.3S 108.2E40 kt998 mbTropical storm
Dec 14, 18:0011.1S 109.0E40 kt1000 mbTropical storm
Dec 15, 00:0010.9S 110.0E40 kt1003 mbTropical storm
Dec 15, 06:0010.6S 112.0E40 kt1002 mbTropical storm
Dec 15, 12:0010.3S 114.2E35 kt1004 mbTropical storm
Dec 15, 18:0010.8S 116.1E30 kt1004 mbTropical storm
Dec 16, 00:0012.1S 117.9E25 kt1005 mbTropical storm

Other South Indian storms of 1976

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. This storm’s winds are ten-minute averages from its regional agency. They read about 12 percent lower than the one-minute winds US agencies use, so a Saffir-Simpson category is not given for it.

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.