The 1978 season

Tropical Storm Marylou (1978)

Tropical Storm Marylou peaked at 36 kt in the South Indian between March 15, 1978 and March 19, 1978, with a lowest pressure of 991 mb.

Track and intensity

The whole track of Tropical Storm Marylou, colored by strength, with the other storms of the 1978 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
March 15, 1978 to March 19, 1978
Peak strength
Tropical Storm, 36 kt (41 mph), ten-minute wind
Lowest pressure
991 mb (29.26 inHg)
Landfall
No; closest approach 1138 km (707 mi)
Accumulated cyclone energy
0.1
Identifier
SH261978

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
Mar 15, 00:0010.5S 68.0E20 kt1003 mbTropical storm
Mar 15, 06:0012.0S 71.0ETropical storm
Mar 15, 12:0011.7S 70.7ETropical storm
Mar 15, 18:0011.5S 70.4ETropical storm
Mar 16, 00:0011.3S 70.0E28 kt997 mbTropical storm
Mar 16, 06:0011.2S 69.6ETropical storm
Mar 16, 12:0011.1S 69.1ETropical storm
Mar 16, 18:0011.0S 68.5ETropical storm
Mar 17, 00:0011.0S 68.2E36 kt991 mbTropical storm
Mar 17, 06:0011.0S 68.0ETropical storm
Mar 17, 12:0011.2S 67.4ETropical storm
Mar 17, 18:0011.7S 66.7ETropical storm
Mar 18, 00:0012.2S 66.4E28 kt997 mbTropical storm
Mar 18, 06:0013.0S 66.5ETropical storm
Mar 18, 12:0014.0S 66.9ETropical storm
Mar 18, 18:0015.0S 67.5ETropical storm
Mar 19, 00:0015.9S 68.2EMixed
Mar 19, 06:0016.8S 68.9ETropical storm

Other South Indian storms of 1978

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.