Cyclone 17P Briefly Named Sarah, Then Fizzles

Cyclone 17P finally strengthened enough to get named Tropical Storm Sarah over the weekend, as it continued on a southern track toward the South Cook Islands. It didn’t hold together long however, as by Monday, March 1, the storm has dissipated.

Tropical Storm Sarah’s winds peaked around 39 mph (35 knots) on Saturday, February 27. Thirty-nine mph is the lowest maximum sustained wind speed a cyclone can have to be classified as a tropical storm. At 10 a.m. ET on Saturday, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center issued its final warning on the system.

It was about 555 miles east-southeast of Pago Pago, American Samoa at that time, near 17.4 South latitude and 162.5 East longitude. Sarah/17P was still moving at the slow pace it maintained the previous week, at 4 mph (3 knots). Sarah was generating 8-foot high waves on Saturday that affected the coasts of the South Cook Islands.