Flood ravaged Queensland is preparing for a monstrous South Pacific Ocean Tropical Cyclone Yasi. Forecast to reach Category 4+ strength on the familiar Saffir-Simpson scale, there really is nothing inhibiting this storm from explosively intensifying and reaching 135 knots+ in terms of sustained winds. Ocean heat content below Yasi is high and sufficient to maintain a very intense TC. As the USA deals with the upcoming blizzard with a couple feet of snow forecast for the Midwest, the ongoing Southern Hemisphere summer produces tropical cyclones. In terms of history, Yasi will likely be compared to Cyclone Larry (2006) which made landfall somewhat north of the forecast track of Yasi. However, the circulation of Yasi is considerably larger and, if it maintains it intensity until landfall, could be one of the strongest and largest TCs to make landfall in Australia in the past century.
Forecasting and Predictability note: The ECMWF forecast model has been consistently forecasting a major tropical cyclone near or over Queensland on Feb 3 for the last 7-days: Link to last 14-Forecast Cycles. This demonstration of 10-day TC track skill is quite impressive.
Links to other satellite floaters: Water Vapor, Visible, hourly IR animation of above.
It’d be interesting to see why TC’s Anthony and Bianca fizzed out (Bianca moreso). Low SST?
I think the best site for checking SST around Australia is the CSIRO:
http://www.marine.csiro.au/~lband/web_point/
Cyclones need a SST of at least 26C to boot up and Bianca off the WA coast a couple of days ago went from category 4 to nothing in about 36 hours once she tracked south into SST around 23 to 24C. SST off Perth were a bit above average so the capital was lucky (unlucky re lack of rainfall).
Yasi is now a cat 3 spinning up to 205kmh and her expected path (http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDQ65002.shtml) can be checked against the CSIRO point-n-click. The hottest sea surface spot in the path I can find (146.6e, 18.9s, just off the Queensland coast) is 30.4C, and that’s not good news.
The CSIRO temps are over the past six days so with a bit of luck TC Anthony has cooled the sea surface a bit since their data was collated.
Unless Yasi goes walkabouts, landfall looks like it’ll be about 1am Thursday. If the BoM models are accurate (http://reg.bom.gov.au/fwo/IDG00073.pdf), her inland western remnants might merge with a low over central Australia on Friday, and with a cold front in the Southern Ocean. It’s gonna be wet.
Good luck, Queenslanders.
Michael says:
January 31, 2011 at 6:02 am
“… should certainly indicate… …there is probably a little bit of human induced climate change…”
No, I don’t carry that sort of hubris. Mankind is not as powerful as some elitists try to make us out to be.
A “a little bit” maybe. As for record highs you conveniently ignore the record lows. Can you show me how this is “abnormal” as you put it? What would the people who lived through the MWP or the Roman Warm Period have said?
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http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/csi/moscow2010/
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Pakistan floods not unprecedented – more damaging floods in 1929 and 1980s
http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/mlk-2010-pakistan-floods.pdf
In that same year, 2010, we had snow in the Amazon? Parts of South America experienced unusual cold and snow this year which saw hundreds of penguins die in Brazil as well as over a million tropical fish dead due to cold in Bolivia, snow on the Mediterranean beach. This is just Nature.
As for the record highs I have to be highly sceptical. Climate scientists have an inbuilt bias towards forced climate change and their careers a dependent on continued warming. What if we enter a cooling phase lasting two decades would we blame man then? Joseph D’Aleo explains the temperature issues much better than myself.
http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm/6440/Is-It-Really-The-Warmest-Ever
liverpoollass says:
January 31, 2011 at 3:21 am
Lass you’ll find your son and DIL will get good advice upon landing at the airport. Trying to advise from a half a world away is not the way to go.
I’m sure you’re worried, but you’ll find the communities up there are well prepared and experienced. Speaking of which, your son and DIL will have an experience of a lifetime they’re not gunna get at the old dart.
To ease your mind, log onto the Cairns Council website and follow the local news.
http://www.cairns.com.au/news/index.html
Michael says:
January 31, 2011 at 6:02 am
“should certainly indicate to skeptics that something abnormal is going on….”
Not at all Michael. This is the type of severe weather events one would expect during a regime change such as we are experiencing now. (every 35.8 years to be precise)
So, being part and parcel of regular cycles, there is nothing abnormal happening.
“However, the circulation of Yasi is considerably larger and, if it maintains it intensity until landfall, could be one of the strongest and largest TCs to make landfall in Australia in the past century”
It would have to be big to outdo cyclone Tracy(1974)Northern Territory
http://www.enjoy-darwin.com/cyclone-tracy.html
I was in the NT that year,in a small mining camp.My daughter was born in April.We drove through floods to get to a midwife at a clinic.Went through to Katherine later that day.Katherine flooded and the hospital was on stand-by to evacuate.1974 was a bad year for Australia.
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“135 knots+ in terms of sustained winds.”
I love it when the reporting agencies give wind speed in totally useless terms like knots. Does anyone outside a sailor or maybe a pilot actually know how fast a “knot” is as compared to miles per hour or kilometers per hour? That kind of useless information only deserves to be ignored.
Massive Cyclone approaching and Wivenhoe Dam is being kept at 100% capacity, haven’t learned much, have they?
“Queensland bracing for monster tropical cyclone Yasi”
Um …what good will it do to put on suspenders? Or is that only in Great Britain?
Michael says:
January 31, 2011 at 6:02 am
Hi Michael
Instead of flapping your arms about rather uselessly why don’t you do something untypical of an AGWer. CCer or CDer of whatever you guys call yourselves these days. Produce for us (the skeptics) historical evidence that we are currently experiencing extreme climate patterns outside normal variations.
James
Michael says:
January 31, 2011 at 6:02 am
….should certainly indicate to skeptics that something abnormal is going on and that there is probably a little bit of human induced climate change in all weather events as it intensifies and shifts the normal patterns. That is if you are truly skeptics…
Michael, you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about, neither as to your “something abnormal is going on”, nor as to your understanding of “skeptics”.
Why do you think skeptics are as suggestible and manipulable as you are? Why do you think your neurotic “just so”, exclusively cataclysmal narratives pass truely scientific sceptical muster? They don’t. You should figure out why they don’t and without appealing to your needy and frightened “just so” thought process, because it is very clear that, so far, you haven’t got a clue.
@ur momisugly F.Ross
Whatever rocks your boat!
Michael says (January 31, 2011 at 6:02 am )
No, Michael, not abnormal. Infrequent. You have been living in a global warm period. I assume you are young, since you appear to have no personal experience with a global cool period.
Mates, you are hogging the “Warm Pool” and all of us to the east of you are left with the cold dregs (La Nina).
http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/ensosea-levelsea-surface-temperature-page/
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/global_ncom/anims/eqp/sst12m.gif
FYI: NASA. 1998. SVS Animation 287 – Visualizing El Niño. Scientific. Scientific Visualization Studio. April 1. NASA Animation
Sea surface height and temperature anomalies in the Pacific Ocean in August 1997 as measured by NOAA-14/AVHRR and TOPEX/Poseidon: SST, Sea Height, Wind, Thermocline
See the “Reference Pages” tab in the top bar of WUWT for more.
woodNfish says: January 31, 2011 at 8:41 am
One knot is about 1.151 miles per hour. Note that “knot” is defined as “sea miles per hour”, and so “knots per hour” is incorrect usage. It comes in handy when navigating.
Michael says:
January 31, 2011 at 6:02 am
You’re like a stuck record.
woodNfish says:
January 31, 2011 at 8:41 am
You’ve got a computer. Go to Google.
Type 135knots in mph into the search box. Hit reurn.
This will be on the first line of results:
135 knots = 155.355225 mph
You have it exactly backwards. Many of us are old enough to know (we were actually paying attention to the news and the weather years ago) that this sort of thing happens all the time. That is why we are “skeptical” about assigning a cause to perfectly natural weather event clusters.
Here’s a clue — go to the library and do some reading. You might want to start with the book “The Little Ice Age”
It goes on to relate that there were torrential rains that lasted nearly all summer. It rained through May, July and August the rains did not stop, to the point that oxen stood knee deep in mud in what used to be productive fields.
This sort of weather extreme has happened many times in the historical record if you bother to look for it. The only thing unusual about this years weather is that the media is presenting it devoid of historical context, and not bothering to mention that similar heat waves, and rain events in the past, long before we started driving SUV’s.
Larry
Michael,
The basis of scientific thinking is to require firm evidence of significant effects. “A little bit in everything” is the antithesis of that.
Yasi is a dead-set worry.
Michael says:
January 31, 2011 at 6:02 am
there is probably a little bit of human induced climate change in all weather events as it intensifies and shifts the normal patterns.
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Michael, gonnae just giz a break, eh?
Do you get paid per comment?
There was flooding in Brisbane at the levels of the 1974 floods or higher once every 15 years on average between 1848 and 1911.
There was not much global warming due to man made CO2 in the 19th century.
I am repeating myself but so are the warmists!
I heard on ABC radio here in Adelaide this morning that they are advising tourists not to come to North Queensland at this time. I would be postponing or cancelling if I had flights into Cairns planned for today (Tuesday) with the cyclone estimated to make landfall on Thursday. Good luck to all in N Qld.
liverpoollass says:
January 31, 2011 at 3:21 am
My son and girlfriend from UK are flying into Cairns Tuesday 1st Feb at lunchtime. Can anyone suggest somewhere (hostel or something similar) safe they can sit this storm out for a few days please? I think they’ve a hostel booked for one night, but that’s likely to be far too near the coastline. Cheers anyone who can help.
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If the current forecast is to be believed with a possible direct hit just south of Cairns from a very strong (and large in diameter) tropical cyclone…
It will not matter if they are inland or up the coast a ways.
These beasts produce profound amounts of damage, wind and flooding-wise, well inland.
http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDQ65002.shtml
Trust me, mate…they could be without power and perhaps stranded for many days.
They need to reschedule. It will be worth the extra cancellation fees in comparison to being stranded in a tropical environment with no power or perhaps even other utilities disrupted.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Good loop here. Just hit ‘refresh’ to update.
Just heard on ABC news that Jetstar have sold out of flights out of Cairns and that the others are charging $700-1200 a seat. They sure know how to exploit the situation.
Michael, I live in NQ and cyclones are not unexpected or unusual. It is much wider in extent than usual which is why I’m concerned. Damaging winds will extend 400-500 km from the centre which includes us if the eye hits Cairns. I live here and I’m not blaming any greenhouse effect.
Noelene, I’m sorry to correct you but Tracy was not a big cyclone, but houses in Darwin were not built as strongly in those days and there was less warning (and it happened Christmas Eve).
Best advice for tourists? Don’t! Get out now, go south or west.
For people in other parts of the world with friends/ family in the area, stay tuned but NQ is prepared and will look after each other. We’re not a third world country- it just seems that way when the power goes out! Incidentally don’t panic if you can’t contact anyone for 3 or 4 days from Wednesday night our time as power and communications will be out for sure.
Ken