2 May 2011

No trends apparent in occurrence of Pacific cyclones as season finishes

3:42 pm on 2 May 2011

The official cyclone season has come to an end and as met service forecasters make comparisons with past seasons one scientist says there are no trends.

Vanuatu felt the brunt of cyclones Vania and Atu this year and its weather office says there were more cyclones compared to the year before.

The Fiji Met Service says their eight cyclones were about average while in Tonga they had fewer than usual.

But Professor Dr Yuri Kuleshov, from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, says it's fruitless trying to draw conclusions.

He was involved in a recent study that examined data for the past thirty years and says they didn't find any significant trends in the occurence of cyclones.

"Also we looked at the occurrences of cyclones of different intensities and we also did not find any increase in numbers so at this stage we can conclude that there is no increase in occurrences of tropical cyclones in the South Pacific."

Dr Yuri Kuleshov from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.