The 1981 season

Tropical Depression Gerald (1981)

Tropical Depression Gerald peaked at unknown kt in the Western Pacific between April 19, 1981 and April 20, 1981.

Radar

Reflectivity now over Tropical Depression Gerald. 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
Western Pacific
Dates
April 19, 1981 to April 20, 1981
Peak strength
Tropical Depression
Landfall
No; closest approach 1949 km (1211 mi)
Accumulated cyclone energy
0.0
Identifier
1981109N15147

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 19, 06:0015.3N 147.3ETropical storm
Apr 19, 12:0016.2N 148.1ETropical storm
Apr 19, 18:0017.7N 150.5ETropical storm
Apr 20, 00:0017.8N 151.5ETropical storm
Apr 20, 06:0017.9N 152.1ETropical storm

Other Western 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.

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.