Summary
Tropical Cyclone Leon formed about 200 km to the southeast of Christmas Island early on 4 February. It moved generally west southwest and intensified rapidly reaching category 3 intensity later on 5 February. From 7 February Leon felt the influence of wind shear, weakening as it moved west before crossing west of 90°E into La Reunion's area of responsibility at about midnight WST 8 February as a category 1 cyclone.
Leon was renamed as Eline and traversed the Indian Ocean re-intensifying passing north of Mauritius and La Reunion before making landfall on Madagascar on 17 February causing considerable damage. Eline again redeveloped in the Mozambique Channel before crossing the Mozambique coast on 22 February and contributed to an already widespread and serious flooding situation. In all Leon-Eline was a cyclone for two and a half weeks across the Indian Ocean.
Leon had little impact on either Christmas or Cocos Islands.
For more details see the TC Leon Report (pdf)
Track and intensity
All times in WST - subtract 8 hours to convert to UTC.
