The 1981 season

Tropical Storm Daman (1981)

Tropical Storm Daman peaked at 55 kt in the South Pacific between February 20, 1981 and February 24, 1981, with a lowest pressure of 980 mb.

Radar

Reflectivity now over Tropical Storm Daman. 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 Pacific
Dates
February 20, 1981 to February 24, 1981
Peak strength
Tropical Storm, 55 kt (63 mph), ten-minute wind
Lowest pressure
980 mb (28.94 inHg)
Landfall
No; closest approach 212 km (132 mi)
Accumulated cyclone energy
1.0
Identifier
SH181981

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
Feb 20, 00:0014.3S 179.5W30 kt997 mbTropical storm
Feb 20, 06:0014.9S 177.2WTropical storm
Feb 20, 12:0015.3S 175.1W30 kt997 mbTropical storm
Feb 20, 18:0015.6S 173.3WTropical storm
Feb 21, 00:0015.8S 171.5W30 kt997 mbTropical storm
Feb 21, 06:0016.2S 169.3WTropical storm
Feb 21, 12:0016.7S 167.0W40 kt990 mbTropical storm
Feb 21, 18:0017.4S 164.9WTropical storm
Feb 22, 00:0018.3S 162.8W55 kt980 mbTropical storm
Feb 22, 06:0019.5S 160.9WTropical storm
Feb 22, 12:0021.0S 159.3W50 kt985 mbTropical storm
Feb 22, 18:0022.8S 158.2WTropical storm
Feb 23, 00:0025.0S 157.6W45 kt987 mbTropical storm
Feb 23, 06:0027.7S 157.6WTropical storm
Feb 23, 12:0030.5S 158.5W35 kt995 mbTropical storm
Feb 23, 18:0033.0S 160.4WTropical storm
Feb 24, 00:0035.4S 163.5W30 kt997 mbTropical storm
Feb 24, 06:0035.4S 165.9WNot reported
Feb 24, 12:0036.0S 166.0W30 kt997 mbNot reported

Other South Pacific storms of 1981

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.