We have Snowzilla in the USA…
…and Yasi in Oz. Crikey! Look at the size of this thing a day ago:
Jo Nova has a size comparison for the present.
To give you some idea of just how expansive Yasi is, look at the size of it compared to the continental USA, and the UK just for scale.
Yasi 2011 – Cat4
More here at Jo Nova’s including some links to monitor the cyclone
Note to my friends in Townsville, QLD and Cairns: get outta there! Be safe.
That is Big! Oz is really copping it this year.
Can/will anyone comment on the improvements made to this kind of imaging in the last decade or two?
. . . I can search on my own . . as I am not and EXpert.
But, I noticed a change(s) around the time of Katrina . . . to me, it appears that the “sight” as improved compared to years ago.
Maybe NOW you’ll all agree to reduce carbon emissions to 350 ppm or less?
No pressure.
/sarcasm
They were calling for a foot+ here in NW Arkansas, some went as high as 15 to 18inches. Instead we got about 5 inches. If that.
Wow!
Sort of puts a cold UK December into context!
I do trust all are well prepared and come through safely.
Good luck QLD.
Yikes! The U.K. would be rinsed clean!
Idle curiosity; are there any wind turbines in the way? If so, they won’t be there for long.
An old mate of mine who moved to Oz in 1992 used to say NZ rained too much. How I wish we could have some of their rain now.
Good luck North Queesland with your latest weather bomb. Hope it is not as bad as forecasted.
That’s a whole lot of clouds, but clouds don’t do any damage.
Has anyone heard about the size of the actual eyewall? How far out hurricane force winds are predicted to reach?
Right now, it’s path is heading directly for Cairns, which is the worst thing that can happen.
At least they have a warning and know it’s coming.
I feel so sorry for them, and have them all in my prayers.
YOWZZA! THAT’S A REAL CORKER!!!!!!!!!
Looks like the first rain bands are just coming ashore in Queensland:
http://www.goes.noaa.gov/sohemi/sohemiloops/shirgmscol.html
Our thoughts are with our Aussie friends.
Look here at the animation:
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/yasi-looms-large-over-tiny-tracy-20110201-1ac5o.html
Looks tiny. I’ve seen bigger!
I thought we already used up the name Snowzilla in this country. This has to be the son and daughter of Snowzilla.
Let’s all hope the folks in charge of those reservoirs have given up worrying about saving water for future maybe drought conditions and this time they have been emptying the stored water at maximum speed.
The flooding from this storm will be bad enough . . . adding in more from over topped reservoirs would be more misery to endure.
Cairns looks like it’s gonna get clobbered. I hope everyone there has battened down the hatches and is prepared to ride this out. Looks like the only time I wouldn’t want to be in Queensland. Good luck mates.
Can’t be real. It’s spinning the wrong way.
REPLY: Either you forgot the /sarc tag or you don’t know about how the Coriolis force works in the southern hemisphere – Anthony
This morning (Oz time) Yasi has been upgraded to category 5 and predicted to be the biggest storm to hit Australia in living memory.
try:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/02/02/3127394.htm?section=justin
or
http://www.abc.net.au/news/
BoM Satellite:
http://www.bom.gov.au/satellite/
By the way, I want to hear Barrie Harrop complain about their drought some more.
Yasi is now a KILLER CYCLONE upgraded to a category 5 with winds over 295 kilometers.
And as expected all the enviro-alarmists who don’t know the difference between “climate” and “weather” will feel compelled to show themselves like quail before a huntin’ dog.
Any bets on this cyclone (weather event) will be used as a sign of man made climate change. even tho it’s an engineering improbability, it would be like creating 100,000 pyramids in under a day.
Should cyclone Yasi be viewed as a man made engineering marvel of the 21st century? Climate change proponents said it’s man made!
Get ready for the long queue of warmists saying they predicted this with their models.
Cyclone Tip (1979) was bigger –
Australia just has the incredibly bad luck to be in the path of a large tropical cyclone. (I hope they had enough warning!) With a Central Pressure of 924 hPa it isn’t on the top ten Pacific cyclones in the past hundred years…
There have been a LOT of killer cyclones it is interesting to note dates for these..
Spent some time looking into cyclones/hurricanes – interesting reading – as long as one is not bearing down on you!
http://www.gorgecreekorchards.com.au/
Has a panoramic web cam.
Tempest Spark 12:18pm
You’re too late, the Greens already declared this man’s fault! http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/02/01/3127184.htm?section=justin
All this is 100% vindicating Svensmark (cosmic rays), Archibald (solar 24 and 25, Corbyn (solar). shame on BOM, Britain Met office etc they are looking like idiots everywhere.
Sunfighter,
we got it all here in OKC, 12″ level, 36″ – 72″ drifts, wind chill -13. Fun day :-/
Since next Xmas will cost about 10% more than last, don’t sweat the storms.
Good luck to my Ozzie friends. Battern down the ole hatches tight
See RADAR here http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDR411.loop.shtml
lets see, snowmegeddon is taken, as is snowpocalypse….
I know! It’s SnowgnaRok!
and we shall sing of our battles with the Mighty Ice Crystals in the Halls of Valhalla!
Live cam from Au – QLD
http://www.tmr.qld.gov.au/Traffic-cameras-by-location.aspx
For the Greens to claim this is “CO2” related shows a total lack of any research into Queensland cyclones
http://www.bom.gov.au/cyclone/about/cyclones-eastern-impacts.shtml
If you look at the ones in Jan and Mar 1918, you will see a spot barometric reading similar to what is currently being recorded by modern methods. Sure, we don’t know how big these ones back then were, but if you look at the things that can be compared, you will see thing such as 3-4m storm surges witnessed, compared to the 2m currently being forecast.
I suspect that central and lower west Queensland will also be getting very, very wet in the next few days, as happens every 25-40 years
(its cyclical, y’know !!!).
I think Piers said 29th-30th Jan, seems he was slightly out. 🙂
Crikey Mates !
I know you cobbers have to do things in a big way; just to get noticed on that side of the pizza; but this is just going overboard Mate.
Can’t you tone it down a bit, and not kick up so much of a ruckus ?
Keep your heads down you blokes, and I’ll drink another Fosters to appease the gods; I think y’all just gone and done it this time !
@H.R – Windy Hill appears to be the only commissioned wind farm in QLD, and it’s smack in the path of Yasi.
“”””” wws says:
February 1, 2011 at 1:31 pm
lets see, snowmegeddon is taken, as is snowpocalypse….
I know! It’s SnowgnaRok!
and we shall sing of our battles with the Mighty Ice Crystals in the Halls of Valhalla! “””””
Well dubdub, we don’t do ice here in Valhalla; we’re in the fire business; y’know what I mean ?
So just take your snowcones and move on outa here; before we really set the sparks flying !
H.R. says:
February 1, 2011 at 11:23 am
They are used to it up there (says me safely in Sydney). This one does look pretty big, though, and I hope it does not hit the recently flooded south Queensland, as too many people do not have enough shelter.
As for bird mincers, no. We’ve got all the coal!
To give you some idea of just how expansive Yasi is, look at the size of it compared to the continental USA, and the UK just for scale.
Mate, in Australia we get world-class cyclones. Our cultural cringe couldn’t be satisfied otherwise. 🙂
I just hope those who are expected to be affected in Queensland will weather it with minimum loss of life and property. Yasi is a monster.
See webcams here; http://www.tmr.qld.gov.au/Traffic-cameras-by-location.aspx
The Algoracle talked about snowzilla today:
An Answer for Bill
Come on Anthony, the image you included from Jo’s website makes out the cyclone is at least double its actual size, which is something I thought only the alarmists did. Yasi is now a cat 5 storm, so exaggerating its physical size as Jo did is not needed – the wind damage it inflicts tonight in a strip about 150 km’s wide will be enough.
It doesn’t look as bad when you look at the rain rate radar loop that dja posted.
Sorry, I am a scientist and know about Coreolis. Will use the sarc tag from now on. I guess I took too much for granted.
berniel says:
February 1, 2011 at 11:58 am
This morning (Oz time) Yasi has been upgraded to category 5 and predicted to be the biggest storm to hit Australia in living memory.
====================================================
That could be right but lets hope its not. Its on a direct path to Innisfail. They got clobbered in 2006 with a cyclone (hurricane in the US) wind speed of 290 km/hr.
But this one looks bigger. The Australian today Feb 2 in ‘A Plus’ show
that the highest frequency of cyclones was in the 19th Century dropping off considerably during the 20th Century. Yasi looks pissed off and out to make up for some lost appearances. Luckily Brisbane will be spared thank goodness. Our thoughts are with you Northern Queensland.
@Craig Stone says:
February 1, 2011 at 1:46 pm
“@H.R – Windy Hill appears to be the only commissioned wind farm in QLD, and it’s smack in the path of Yasi.”
Thanks, Craig. I’ll try to remember to google Windy Hill after Yasi passes and see if anything is left standing.
@JERoME
“As for bird mincers, no. We’ve got all the coal!”
Yeah, but… it seems the coal is only good for export and not for local consumption. On the bright side, if one of the blades gets blown off and run through a high-ranking government official’s office, they might just change their minds ;o)
The size of the entire thing does not necessarily indicate anything. The size of the high winds near the eye are what matter. I have gone through a hurricane that covered the entire state of Florida when viewed from satellite. It didn’t do much.
Re: ShrNfr says:
Wasn’t Barrie’s business selling windmills for water? Poor Queensland has a surfeit of both. When this storm gets blamed on CAGW, at least it’s an ideal time to question the wisdom of wind power.
Good luck Queensland, and I for one am glad lil Britain doesn’t get that kind of big weather.
Hrm, I suspect it’s the distortion of the graphic versus the angle of the Sat photo, but those comparisons don’t seem accurate. The relative size of Australia between the two images seems drastic, whereas the storm size seems to remain more stable. Is this a fair comparison?
H.R. says:
February 1, 2011 at 2:16 pm
I hope someone trains a video cam on the Windy Hill turbine. I love it so much when they explode and fly apart!
@latitude The Bureau of Meteorology was saying about three hours ago that the eye itself is 70km (43.5 miles) wide.
There’s no chance in hell this has anything to do with Global Warminbg!
So far this year, in Australia, we have had floods in both Qld and Victoria. Now a very large cyclone is bearing down on northern Queensland.
Joe Bastardi was taking about a huge snow storm headed for the USA once more.
Is this just weather or could it be due to either human CO2 emissions or to a disturbance caused by the change in the cycle from hot/dry to cold/wet, that occurs every 30 years or so?
I recall the last major flood in Brisbance in 1974 and the mighty cyclone that flattened Darwin at Christmas of that same year.
Those events also marked the start of the last change in the cycle from cold/wet to hot/ dry.
It was that change that got the IPCC so excited and forecasting that we are going to hell in the CO2 basket.
Could so many “climate experts” be wrong?
Could all this weather/climate be just an indicator of the change in the cycle?
Has anybody got a more coherent data set of climate extremes at the turn of these 30 odd year semi cycles?
Following on the incompetence of the QLD Govt. in keeping the Wivenhoe Dam too full earlier in the month thus allowing the flooding of Brisbane, the Mackay Council had run out of sandbags yesterday and was prosecuting anyone taking sand from the beaches, bloody bureaucrats.
Atomic Hairdryer says:
February 1, 2011 at 2:19 pm
Good luck Queensland, and I for one am glad lil Britain doesn’t get that kind of big weather.
Maybe, but we don’t get buried under glaciers every so often.
I’m not in a compulsory evacuation area but from council advice I am in an orange flood zone (200 metres inland from the esplanade)……I hope I’m high enough above for that advice to be accurate…….If it ain’t?…well I want to make it official that no-one sues anyone cos it ain’t anyone’s fault……if you exclude AGW that is.
Fingers crossed for the roof……..
I’m still pinning hopes on the Cap’n Cook statue being disappeared mind. Be almost worth it all for that.
See you later.
Wow! I am soooo glad I live in the Denver area! We get some big snows, and an occasional deep freeze (like now) but nothing that destroys entire cities.
We don’t get hurricanes, we don’t get earthquakes (not really anyway), we mostly only have tornadoes east of I-25, and if you don’t live in the fire zone in the foothills or near a creek prone to flooding, you don’t have those natural disasters either.
On our side of town, our big storm 18 months ago which may have been a funnel cloud gave us a bit of hail damage but that’s it. Our house was still standing and our vehicles didn’t wash away. We replaced the roof and the plants regrew. I think so birds got knocked on the head from hailstones and died, but they were the only casualties.
Good luck Australia, you really seem to be having a bad year. I hope everyone stays safe and dry.
AS of this moment Yasi is right on top of Willis Island. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willis_Island
Apparently the island has a meteorological post. It even has radar! http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDR412.loop.shtml
The cyclone has a giant eye apparently, approx 100 km wide.
Boorman:
“Come on Anthony, the image you included from Jo’s website makes out the cyclone is at least double its actual size, which is something I thought only the alarmists did.”
The size is accurate actually – only the positioning is wrong. See the latest satellite image at:
http://www.bom.gov.au/gms/IDE00035.latest.shtml
It’s a truly massive system and is expected to make landfall on the most populated area of Queensland’s tropical coast.
Ray Boorman says:
February 1, 2011 at 1:57 pm
“Come on Anthony, the image you included from Jo’s website makes out the cyclone is at least double its actual size, which is something I thought only the alarmists did. Yasi is now a cat 5 storm, so exaggerating its physical size as Jo did is not needed – the wind damage it inflicts tonight in a strip about 150 km’s wide will be enough.”
Ray,
If you go to Jo’s website, the image is at the correct scale and has not been sceld up. Jo has a later satellite image than that shown by Anthony. The scale is about right looking at that image.
Regards
Steve
Ray Boorman says:
February 1, 2011 at 1:57 pm
Jeremy says:
February 1, 2011 at 2:27 pm
What’s with you people? No one is making a scientific claim or preparing charts for publication in journals.
The graphic is there to give people SOME IDEA of the size of this cyclone. Nobody doctored anything for personal gain. We’re taking this cyclone very very seriously and irregardless of petty nitpicking by the likes of you lot IT’S A FRIGGIN BIG ONE OK?
And yes the eye is all important, but the cloud band swirling around this monster is going to DUMP RAIN INTO AREAS ONLY RECENTLY RECOVERING FROM FLOODS with already saturated ground.
George E. Smith says:
February 1, 2011 at 1:42 pm
George I’ve always said Queensland is to Australia what Texas is to the US. We like to do things BIG.
Thanks for the sentiments mate.
p.s. You gotta drink VB mate. Fosters is soooo 70’s 80’s
George Smith – Nice of you to try and talk to us in our local vernacular – and you did a pretty good job until you drop the “y’all”. No one in Australia ever says that. Fair Dinkum
See what happens when you Rev the Large Hadron Collider too often!
Memo to staff, due the recent excessive use of the LHC for recreational activities, management has been forced to put a padlock on the Big Red Shiny Button.
Too many high energy particles have been leaking, causing entanglement hiccups all over the planet, seriously team – remember the HR briefing on avoiding the creation of Black Holes, or a combination of “The Day After Tomorrow” meets “THE CORE.”
Also someone has been short changing the honesty box in the cafeteria, I won’t mention any names,….you know who you are.
Appologies to Australia, we were aiming for North Korea.
Batten down the hatches. Hang on in there, and above all good luck.
I predict that this storm will spawn yet another ultra lame ‘disaster’ TV mini- series.
We’ll still have reruns 7 yrs on.
No one will watch them, either.
Darren Parker says:
February 1, 2011 at 3:49 pm
George Smith – Nice of you to try and talk to us in our local vernacular – and you did a pretty good job until you drop the “y’all”. No one in Australia ever says that. Fair Dinkum
George did OK, hey !
Chris & Darren,
All y’alls must know George was just bein’ friendly.☺
“”””” Darren Parker says:
February 1, 2011 at 3:49 pm
George Smith – Nice of you to try and talk to us in our local vernacular – and you did a pretty good job until you drop the “y’all”. No one in Australia ever says that. Fair Dinkum “””””
Well I doubt that many of you say “throw a couple more shrimp on the barbie either.” I know none of the Melbourne clan of my family talks anything like that.
But after 50 yrs in the USA, I have become quite bilingual; well tri-lingual actually, as I’m not bad with the King’s English either.
But I was just relaying to you the sentiments of some of my Texas pals; who also have a lot of Aussie friends; But if those Texan’s sentiments offend you; just forget that I passed on their best wishes.
Now my Mate Harro, who is stuck right in the middle of that storm path; talks a dialect that probably a whole lot of you wouldn’t even understand.
By the way, my Texas Mates actually most often would say y’alls, rather than y’all, but that’s a subtlety, that I haven’t been inducted into yet; maybe a few more years, if I behave myself.
In any case; in whatever language you prefer, we ARE rooting for y’alls to come through this ok. I believe ok translates
into every language on earth; probably even Albert Namatjira would have said “ok.”
“”””” “”””” Darren Parker says:
February 1, 2011 at 3:49 pm
George Smith – Nice of you to try and talk to us in our local vernacular – and you did a pretty good job until you drop the “y’all”. No one in Australia ever says that. Fair Dinkum “”””” “””””
And since I have offended you, I’ll change my order from a Fosters, to a Stein lager. Well on second thoughts both of those are so 1970s, and incidently they are both ladies beer. Real men wouldn’t ever drink a lager. I believe that I grew up on Brown Bomber; and we didn’t allow ladies into the bar; wihout an escort, so we never really got to see what lager looks like.
Now over here, we have Miller lite; now there’s a total nothing swill if there ever was one; looks pretty much the same before and after you drink it. They say it’s made in the Rockies out of yellow snow.
I don’t know what they have against me, but my house is being bombed by tree limbs. Hopefully the trees don’t follow suit. Ice rain sucks.
Its just another dissapative structure.
>George E. Smith says:
>February 1, 2011 at 5:43 pm
>
>Now over here, we have Miller lite; now there’s a total
>nothing swill if there ever was one; looks pretty much
>the same before and after you drink it. They say it’s
>made in the Rockies out of yellow snow.
Miller Lite? Well if you aren’t going to drink then neither will I. 🙂
Well, its just starting to freshen up here. Cairns is about 60kms away and the eye is now likely to miss them (and us) but we will still have 100 kt winds soon its about 40 at present. The house is rated at 110kts so we should be fine.
I’m sure someone will be blaming the Cola Barons on this tomorrow.
Keep up the good work Anthony, you have made a real difference on a very important public policy, not many people get to say that.
that should have been coal not cola. tks
Dear Queensland,
I hate you.
Yours sincerely,
Mother Nature
bubbagyro says:
February 1, 2011 at 11:54 am
Can’t be real. It’s spinning the wrong way.
REPLY: Either you forgot the /sarc tag or you don’t know about how the Coriolis force works in the southern hemisphere – Anthony
Just watch the water going down your bath plug-hole if you want to know which hemisphere you’re in.
George, don’t sweat it, the kind thoughts are appreciated.
And just for the record, this is Queensland. We drink XXXX or Bundaberg Rum. 🙂
It was said days ago that Yasi was Katrina’s big ugly sister.
This shows a slightly different scale to my eye.
http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2011-02/59168189.jpg
This has got George Bush’s name all over it-why does he hate Australians so much.
I use to have a picture of Hurricane Floyd before it made landfall (that was about 12 years ago) for my wallpaper. It was impressive! Basically smothering the entire east coast (about as bit as Yasi). If anyone has a link to that (NOAA took it down long ago), I would love to get it back.
Cyclones/Typhoons/Hurricanes – they are real monsters!
You knew this was coming with Yasi:
“Cyclone may be tipping point in Australia climate policy debate”
http://www.wgntv.com/news/politics/sns-rt-environment-us-australia-clima20110202,0,7895468.story
It is climate, of course, when the warmers want it to be climate.
The warmers are avoiding comment on the blizzard, it seems. Good thing for them Yasi showed up when it did. Bless their little pointed heads…
“”””” JohnB says:
February 2, 2011 at 4:49 am
George, don’t sweat it, the kind thoughts are appreciated.
And just for the record, this is Queensland. We drink XXXX or Bundaberg Rum. 🙂 “””””
Well Kiwi (s) have a saying: If you can’t find a Kiwi to root for, find an Aussie and cheer for him(er) ! And I already heard from my Mate Harro, and he says he’s too far south to get the worst of it, although, because of the cockeyed rotation, the Southern regions will get more storm surge, than Cairns.
Being multi-lingual has its drawbacks. Even here, I have to explain to my Texas Mates, that Yank, and Yankee are not synonymous. One would have to have grown up in the South Pacific during the war, to understand Yank; a term of endearment applicable to nearly all Americans; and not to be confused with their historical homeland unpleasantness. Of course today, Yankee, could also be an overpriced baseball (rounders) club member; come to think of it, a lot of folks still despise them; although most of them are Dominican Republicans. And then I am legally related to a native Texican, so I get my San Francisco or San Jose happenings news from Mexico City, in Spanish.
Come to think of it, I could have a good Negra Modello, instead of either a Foster’s or a Stein Lager.
Stay safe Mates, and don’t sweat it; she’ll be right, and it’ll all come out in the wash.
Looks like it did.
Much damage but zero casualties (so far). So with the 3 babies born at the height of the storm the score is
Queensland 3 – Yasi 0