Tropical storm Dikeledi barreled towards Mozambique on Monday after leaving three dead in Madagascar and triggering floods in the French territory of Mayotte, less than a month after the cyclone-battered region was hit by Chido.
Chido left at least 39 dead in Mayotte, injuring more than 5,600, and causing colossal damage.
When Chido made landfall in the southeast African country of Mozambique in December, it inflicted a more punishing toll—killing at least 120 people and injuring more than 900.
By Monday morning around 0200 GMT, Dikeledi was 150 kilometers off the coast of Mozambique, according to French weather administration Meteo-France.
It is expected to intensify over the warm waters of the Mozambique Channel to reach “the stage of an intense or very intense tropical cyclone”, Meteo-France said.
Cyclones usually develop in the Indian Ocean from November to March. This year, surface water temperatures are close to 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit) in the area, which provides more intensity to storms, a global warming phenomenon also observed in the North Atlantic and the Pacific.