A less eventful night than anticipated for Fiji as TC Zena weakened soon after dark Wednesday night as the circulation encountered strong middle and upper level winds.

These winds pushed the larger and very prominent cloud bands and the accompanying heavy rain away to the south, sparing the western and central division from the predicted heavy rain prior to the arrival of the cyclone.

Secondly, the unexpectedly strong middle and upper level winds caused the circulation of TC Zena to weaken as the convection around the centre of the cyclone was pushed southwards at higher levels, while the surface circulation continued on its predicted path.

Thus winds over Viti Levu were much weaker than expected – by about midnight the cloud structure had weakened so greatly it was barely a Category One system. By 6am the centre of TC Zena was located close to Ono in southern Lau and moving east-southeast towards Tongatapu.

The cloud and heavy rain cleared away to the far southeast of the country.

Flood levels were receding quickly and rivers drained remaining flood waters into the sea.

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