Friday, April 11, 2014

More on Tropical Cyclone Ita


Australia's attention is focused on Far North Queensland and Tropical Cyclone Ita. (More here.)

Source: BoM

The Cooktown shelter has gone into lockdown and power has gone out in the town.  I've just heard that people may be locked in the shelter for 48 hours. The storm will probably bring down powerlines so there'll be all sorts of dangers even after the storm passes. There's a warning that it could be a month before power is restored. (Supply in Far North Queensland was described as one long extension cord stretching north of Cairns.)

Been hearing that the cyclone shelter in Hope Vale is meant for a Cat 3 cyclone, so the people there are concerned, given Ita is a Cat 5.

The other thing is that the system is slow.  I've heard it could mean 300 mm of rain every six hours for days.  That means floods and more damage to areas already devastated by massive winds.

The locals seem to be very organised and have prepared very well. Cairns is a fair way south of landfall but is in the expected path as the system moves down the coast. (see here)

I've been collecting a few tweets about Tropical Cyclone Ita.


You can see some more info about Ita here.
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5 comments:

  1. It's 6:00pm Friday and the news is that it's been downgraded to Cat 4. Let's hope that this means that it won't be too destructive...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Let's hope, Bernard.

    Remember Cyclone Larry in 2006. "Cyclone Larry was regarded as the most powerful cyclone to affect Queensland in almost a century". It had dropped to Cat 4 at landfall.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone_Larry

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Indeed.

      Which raises a pertinent point in terms of climate change - what's more important in some ways is the integral of storm energy, rather than the maximum y value at which the second derivative = 0.

      Delete
  3. Non-meteorologists, like me might find the following link useful. This shows the storm at landfall...

    http://earth.nullschool.net/#2014/04/11/0300Z/wind/isobaric/1000hPa/orthographic=147.23,-16.59,1306

    By clicking on the word 'earth' in the link above, you reveal a toolbar that lets you scroll forward in time until...

    http://earth.nullschool.net/#2014/04/13/1200Z/wind/isobaric/1000hPa/orthographic=147.23,-16.59,1306

    ...where, after hugging the coast for a long time, it seems it may join up with another storm system. I should stress that I am a layman, and you are much better off with local professional advice.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wow, that is so cool - like watching an aquarium...!

      One for the bookmarks.

      Delete

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