The 1987 season

Tropical Storm Veli (1987)

Tropical Storm Veli peaked at 40 kt in the South Pacific between February 5, 1987 and February 10, 1987, with a lowest pressure of 990 mb.

Radar

Reflectivity now over Tropical Storm Veli. 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 5, 1987 to February 10, 1987
Peak strength
Tropical Storm, 40 kt (46 mph), ten-minute wind
Lowest pressure
990 mb (29.23 inHg)
Landfall
No; closest approach 53 km (33 mi)
Accumulated cyclone energy
1.0
Identifier
1987037S14152

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 5, 12:0014.2S 152.0ETropical storm
Feb 5, 18:0014.2S 153.4ETropical storm
Feb 6, 00:0014.0S 154.5ETropical storm
Feb 6, 06:0014.0S 155.3ETropical storm
Feb 6, 12:0013.9S 156.0ETropical storm
Feb 6, 18:0013.8S 156.8ETropical storm
Feb 7, 00:0013.6S 157.5ETropical storm
Feb 7, 06:0013.2S 159.7ETropical storm
Feb 7, 12:0013.1S 161.8E40 kt990 mbTropical storm
Feb 7, 18:0013.2S 163.5E35 kt995 mbTropical storm
Feb 8, 00:0014.4S 166.2E30 kt997 mbTropical storm
Feb 8, 06:0015.9S 168.9E30 kt997 mbTropical storm
Feb 8, 12:0017.7S 171.0E30 kt997 mbTropical storm
Feb 8, 18:0019.0S 173.0E30 kt997 mbTropical storm
Feb 9, 00:0019.8S 174.2E35 kt995 mbTropical storm
Feb 9, 06:0020.8S 175.0E40 kt990 mbTropical storm
Feb 9, 12:0021.3S 176.5E40 kt990 mbTropical storm
Feb 9, 18:0022.1S 176.9E40 kt990 mbTropical storm
Feb 10, 00:0023.0S 177.8E40 kt990 mbNot reported

Other South Pacific storms of 1987

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.