The 1988 season

Unnamed tropical depression (1988)

Unnamed tropical depression peaked at 25 kt in the South Indian between March 28, 1988 and March 30, 1988, and made landfall.

Radar

Reflectivity now over Unnamed tropical depression. 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 Indian
Dates
March 28, 1988 to March 30, 1988
Peak strength
Tropical Depression, 25 kt (29 mph)
Landfall
Yes
Accumulated cyclone energy
0.0
Identifier
SH181988

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 28, 18:0016.7S 48.2E25 ktTropical storm
Mar 29, 00:0016.8S 47.1E20 ktTropical storm
Mar 29, 06:0016.9S 45.9E20 ktTropical storm
Mar 29, 12:0017.0S 44.7E20 ktTropical storm
Mar 29, 18:0017.3S 43.5E20 ktTropical storm
Mar 30, 00:0017.7S 42.4E25 ktTropical storm

Other South Indian storms of 1988

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.