Cyclone Winston

The Fiji Met Service said Winston is currently around 250 kilometres north-northwest of Niue and 340KM east-southest of Tonga's Niuatoputapu.

Met director Ravind Kumar said the Tonga's northern islands, particularly Vava'u, can expect to be hit for a second time by the storm on Friday.

The category three cyclone was about 300 kilometres east north east of Vava'u and a similar distance to the southeast of Niuatoputapu earlier this afternoon.

Winds gusting up to 185 kilometres an hour are expected at the centre of the cyclone.

The now category three storm is approaching the far northern Niuas after coming close to Vava'u overnight.

Latest projections are that it will then hook round and hit Vava'u again.

Early this morning Cyclone Winston was located about 230 kilometres south of Niuatoputapu, or 80 kilometres north-northeast of Neiafu - moving at about 23 kilometres an hour, with gusts of up to 150 kilometres an hour.

The category two cyclone has already caused some minor damage and flooding of low-lying areas in Tongatapu and Ha'apai.

A staff member at the National Emergency Management Office says a team will conduct a survey of the islands this morning to determine if any further damage was caused overnight.

The photo was posted by a local who said the activity was spotted at a pier in Nuku’alofa waterfront.

Tonga’s MetServices report at 7.10am this morning said Tropical Cyclone Winston Category 2 was located 290km west of Nuku’alofa at 4:00am.

The cyclone is moving Northeast on its current track,

The cyclone remains a category two, with winds as high as 130 kilometres an hour at its centre.

Tonga's Meteorological Service said damaging winds, heavy rains and rough seas could be expected for Ha'apai, Tongatapu, 'Eua and the Niuas.

In Vava'u the winds were predicted to be destructive.

The category two cyclone is currently near Fiji's southern Lau group, with winds of up to 130 kilometres an hour at its centre.

The Fiji Metservice said there was still some chance the cyclone might intensify into a category three within the next 48 to 72 hours, as it moves towards Tonga's Vava'u and Ha'apai island groups.

Reporters from Fijivillage spoke to the Turaga Ni Koro, Filipe Colati, on Ono-i-Lau, who said they experienced strong and devastating winds late last night.

He said the winds were stronger than Cyclone Ula and that five houses have been destroyed in Dakuni village.

Mr Colati said there was also extreme damage to vegetation.

The cyclone was downgraded to a category two on Monday afternoon as it moved towards Fiji's southern Lau group, but Misaeli Funaki, a forecaster at the Fiji Meteorological Service, said the storm still had damaging winds as high as 155 kilometres an hour.

The cyclone is currently about 275 kilometres southwest of Ono-i-Lau with winds of between 110 and 155 kilometres an hour at its centre.

It says damaging gale force winds can be expected, as well as heavy rains, rough seas and squally thunderstorms.