Yasi 2011 — Cyclonic force of nature

File this under shock and awe. Send best wishes to North Queensland.

Cyclone Yasi is now Category 4 Category 5, with windspeeds of 270 295 km per hour (185 miles/hr).

UPDATE #2: Yes, thousands are evacuating, or moving to higher ground. Extra flights and trains are taking people out. Hospital patients are being moved. People are boarding and taping up windows. Whole suburbs in danger of inundation are being evacuated. It’s about 12 hours to go.

Infra red imaging of North Queensland and Yasi

I do a double take each time I see just how far Yasi reaches.

It reminds us of our relative power.  It’s 3000 km (1620 nautical miles) from Melbourne to Cape York (roughly the most southerly point on continental Australia to the most northerly) . The full spread of the cloud formations connected to Yasi is a similar scale.

...

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

Track it live on these pages

At 1:00 am EST Severe Tropical Cyclone Yasi, Category 4 was estimated to be
740 kilometres east northeast of Cairns and 750 kilometres northeast of
Townsville moving west southwest at 30 kilometres per hour.

Queenslanders have had more than their fair share of weather. My thoughts are with those who right now, are just starting to see and feel the edges of this behemoth.

I hope there are no ships near the action.

Australia : US size comparison

UPDATE:

Details of Severe Tropical Cyclone Yasi at 10:00 am EST:
.Centre located near...... 16.4 degrees South 149.9 degrees East
.Location accuracy........ within 30 kilometres
.Recent movement.......... towards the west southwest at 30 kilometres per hour
.Wind gusts near centre... 295 kilometres per hour
.Severity category........ 5
.Central pressure......... 922 hectoPascals
10 out of 10 based on 2 ratings

59 comments to Yasi 2011 — Cyclonic force of nature

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    […] here at Jo Nova’s including some links to monitor the […]

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    Don’t take this the wrong way Jo but I’d rather not visualise something that size hitting the UK. There’d be nothing left.

    Good luck to all in its path.

    Pointman

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    bubbagyro

    Pointman:
    I DO take it the wrong way! It is spinning the wrong way, and must therefore be a Gore-tefact, and not real.

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    william gray

    now a category 5. winds over 295.
    If I was there and could not get out I,d be digging a large hole with a metal bucket with holes all round and star picket it into the ground above. Inside the hole Id have a tube for breathing attactched to the inside of the bucket. The roof would have to be held down with sand bags. Buildings may not survive a sustain assault of this force.
    Id also try not to freak out.
    Try breathing in an atmosphere like Yasi-not.

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    John from CA

    Cat 5 — Did they evacuate the towns in the projected path?

    If you’re in the projected path of the eye and on or near the coast, head for higher ground.

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    PJB

    You also have a nice panoramic webcam site

    http://www.gorgecreekorchards.com.au/

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    Bob Malloy

    bubbagyro:
    February 2nd, 2011 at 5:59 am

    Pointman:
    I DO take it the wrong way! It is spinning the wrong way, and must therefore be a Gore-tefact, and not real.

    No Bubba, it’s spinning in the right direction. Only in the northern hemisphere would it be spinning the wrong way.

    In meteorology, a cyclone is an area of closed, circular fluid motion rotating in the same direction as the Earth.[1][2] This is usually characterized by inward spiraling winds that rotate counter clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere

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

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    John from CA

    Cairns braces as Cyclone Yasi hits category 5

    Suburbs and hospitals in Cairns were being emptied last night in a mass flight from the “deadly” power of tropical cyclone.
    In unprecedented scenes, the RAAF laid on medically equipped aircraft to spearhead an airlift of 255 hospital patients to Brisbane, while police prepared to enforce the mandatory evacuation of up to 9000 people from low-lying parts of Cairns.

    The cyclone’s full fury is expected to hit the region around Cairns sometime after 10pm tonight.

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  • #
    bubbagyro

    Bob Malloy:

    I was being facetious! I am not a warm-earther and actually do know some stuff, like:

    Warm-earther Geoengineer to Al Gore:
    If we could somehow tow a Katrina-tyep storm into the path of a Yazi-type, the storms should cancel each other out! Maybe I could get a grant to study that.

    Gore:
    Nice idea, I will ask Mann and Hansen to set that up. As long as the two of these storms do not get in the way of any of the 1900 Copenhagen “think tank” waterspout turbine ships we plan to send to sea ASAP:

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    Bob Malloy

    bubbagyro:
    February 2nd, 2011 at 7:09 am

    I was being facetious! I am not a warm-earther and actually do know some stuff:

    I thought that might be the case, however some posters that visit this site “would” believe it’s spinning backwards. Hence the reply.

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    […] riktigt framgått av nyhetsrapporterna är kanske hur ohyggligt stor Yasi är. Om man som bloggaren Jo Nova lägger kontinentala USA över Australien, ser man tydligt hur gigantiskt det annalkande ovädret […]

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  • #
    Neville

    Let’s hope Queenslanders get through this without any loss of life.

    Meantime that Milne idiot has jumped the gun with brain fully disengaged, perhaps she should have googled and checked the facts.

    Let’s hope Brookes does the same while salivating about his one big event to prove cagw. What an embarrassment Milne and these fools are to Australia.

    http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/who_will_be_the_first_to_blame_global_warming/#commentsmore

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  • #
    bubbagyro

    Bob:
    Thanks.
    One never knows on these open blogs. It never ceases to amaze!

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  • #
    Dave N

    The Greens are blaming Yasi on AGW:

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/02/01/3127184.htm?section=justin

    ..but since they either ignore climate and/or history, or just plain fail at it:

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

    They’re totally clueless, as usual.

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  • #
    Percival Snodgrass

    SUBJECT: Cyclone YASI not caused by global warming !!!!!!!!

    Last month it was Greens leader Brown with the totally false statement that the Brisbane flood was an example of increasing climate disasters being caused by climate change despite the fact that the Brisbane had 3 major floods in the 1900-2011 time span when the 1825-1900 period had 8 major floods.Now we have the deputy leader Milne claiming
    Tropical Cyclone Yasi is a “tragedy of climate change”.
    On the ABC she says the cyclone is another example of why it is important to cut carbon pollution.
    “This is a tragedy, but it is a tragedy of climate change,” she said.
    “The scientists have been saying that we are going to experience more extreme weather events, that their intensity is going to increase, their frequency.”
    Now for the facts- the years 1963, 1971, 1974 and 1985 had 18 plus cyclones/year in the BOM observation area (East and West Australia)
    The years 10+ years of the 21st centuries had half this number / year with an average of 9/year. These are facts available on the BOM website here.

    http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/silo/cyclones.cgi?region=aus&syear=2006&eyear=2006&loc=0

    Again we have the ABC reporting Greens political propaganda without question.

    The ABC’s independence is now beyond a joke, it is positively embarrassing.

    Here is a graph from the data given at the cyclone history website for information

    http://api.ning.com/files/dG*xHFZgy9IFkG-OKp1tPtDq7NnSuEJscV9353*VVwwsaQjDIx1PJrQ*1p9RV8D6*xsnrF38*HeAO7zzmTHPTVGQYTgSymPN/CYCLONEGRAPH.pdf

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    charlesd

    Some near real-time data from Willis Island here. Pressure is still dropping and winds increasing, although they have already switched from S to N.

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  • #
    Neville

    We seem to be up against the delusional donkeys who want to blame this in co2 emissions.

    Just have a look at the facts about China and coal burning into the future and why we can’t do anything to prevent it.

    Of course we could try and waste more billions and just cripple our economy and export more of our jobs overseas. Starting to see the light yet JOHN?

    http://www.heraldsun.com.au/business/terry-mccranns-column/hsbc-research-reveals-chinas-coal-rush/story-e6frfig6-1225971769042

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    grayman

    My best wishes for all of Australia for if this has the power and intensity of Hurricane Andrew when it hit south florida the eastern half of Australia will be devistated. My thoughts and prayers are with you!

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    Keith

    Truly an awesome sight.
    But is someone in the media hyperventilating ?
    Cat 5 has maximum wind gusts of more than 280 km/hr
    Yasi has just passed over Willis Island and maximum gust was 185 km/hr.

    That makes it a Cat 3, but undeniably a very big one.
    Maybe it will intensify when it hits the coast, but I thought cyclonic category was based on observation, not forecast.

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    Bulldust

    Dave N:

    Well I had the right gist then, just the wrong cyclone and person… I was looking too close to home with Bianca, but it turned out to be a major cyclone (Yasi) and it was the ABC where the first global warming connection was made by irresponsible Greens…

    Sadly I am in no mood to pat myself on the back.

    Good luck to everyone in QLD… I think that this time tomorrow there won’t really be much left of Innisfail…. ironic name, but lets not dwell on that.

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    wes george

    http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDQ65002.shtml

    from the BOM remarks:

    “THIS IMPACT IS LIKELY TO BE MORE LIFE THREATENING THAN ANY EXPERIENCED DURING RECENT GENERATIONS.”

    Yasi looks to be a storm of historic proportions. For some perspective compare Yasi to the infamous “Storm of 1900” the greatest natural catastrophe in US history.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1900_Galveston_hurricane

    Wiki sez that the largest tropical cyclone on record with a diameter of 2,220 km ever was “Tip” in 1979, a Cat 5 storm. Looks like Yasi may be in this range, if not as well developed:

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

    “…typhoon Tip was also the most intense tropical cyclone on record with a pressure of 870 mbar (hPa, 25.69 inHg), 6 mbar (hPa, 0.17 inHg) lower than previous record set by Super Typhoon June in 1975…almost double the previous record of 700 miles (1,130 km) set by Typhoon Marge in August 1951”

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  • #
    Ken Stewart

    Gday Percival @ 15, I was just going to do this comparison. Your link above doesn’t seem to work- could you send again please? (so I don’t have to).
    Incidentally, report this morning of a plane load of Chinese tourists was landed in Cairns at 4.30pm Tuesday, from the Gold Coast. The airline/ travel agent official who failed to cancel the flight should be held responsible.
    Ken

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    The Quiet Farmer

    Don’t know how to do the link but the BOM site has data for a 3 second gust of 295km/hr. the 30 second data is less.

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    Roy Hogue

    Bob Malloy @7,

    I believe the term for the effect that causes the spin and determines the direction is “coriolis acceleration”.

    Caused by global warming — NOT!

    At cat 5 very dangerous — YES!

    I hope everyone comes through without injury or serious property damage!

    This doesn’t look like fun to even think about. I’ve never seen pictures of a storm so big.

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    Rick Bradford

    Poor old Innisfail — it copped a shellacking off Cyclone Larry in 2006, and has slowly been rebuilding, and now it looks like it will get flattened again.

    I was in Cairns when Larry hit, so about 100km from the centre, and that’s as close as I want to come to one of these terrifying weather events.

    Prayers to all those in the firing line.

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    Jim Barker

    You have my prayers, for all they are worth. (hope much). Only God and good luck, can save us from natural variation. Well that and a little common sense. I’m in the middle of the Snowmageddon, here by Chicago, and the MSM may be worse than the storm. Why do they always seem to send idiots out to stand in the midst of the sort-of storm. Law of Averages would suggest a person, occasionally, would appear. Hope we all make it through.

    Jim

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    george

    This is intriguing. Been checking out this link today

    http://www.bom.gov.au/qld/qld-observations-map.shtml

    with particular reference to Willis Island. Now consider this (local time) timeline;

    0810 – wind 140kph gusting 180-ish

    0837 – wind calm, QNH drops 15 hPa (presumably anemometer trashed)

    1000 – last met report, nil further (presumably the weather station/comms links destroyed)

    A little while thereafter – ABC news report of Willis Island met station and met radar being taken out

    1300(appx) – the wind history only for Willis Island removed from the tabulated record

    Any thoughts – is this standard BoM procedure in the event of a station outage?

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    george

    [Apologies if this comes out twice – didn`t seem to work the first time]

    This is intriguing. Been checking out this link today

    http://www.bom.gov.au/qld/qld-observations-map.shtml

    with particular reference to Willis Island. Now consider this (local time) timeline;

    0810 – wind 140kph gusting 180-ish

    0837 – wind calm, QNH drops 15 hPa (presumably anemometer trashed)

    1000 – last met report, nil further (presumably the weather station/comms links destroyed)

    A little while thereafter – ABC news report of Willis Island met station and met radar being taken out

    1200(appx) – the wind history only for Willis Island removed from the tabulated record

    Any thoughts – is this standard BoM procedure in the event of a station outage?

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    george

    How embarrassment! BTW I think it was closer to 1200 that the wind record went walkabout, hence the “disparity” between the two versions.

    Think I`ll quietly disappear now…

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    Percival Snodgrass

    This site seems to have some Willis Island Wind Data………

    http://wind.willyweather.com.au/qld/northern/willis-island.html

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    Bulldust

    Here’s an interesting resource to put cyclones in perspective:

    http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/silo/cyclones.cgi

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  • #
    Llew Jones

    Here’s a very timely Roy Spencer bit of educated commonsense:

    OMG! ANOTHER GLOBAL WARMING SNOWSTORM!!
    January 31st, 2011

    http://www.drroyspencer.com/

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    […] Cyclone Yasi i sincerely hope that unlike Tracy where aircraft and the Airfast S61 were being flown into Darwin on the eve of the cyclone that all aircraft, especially those assets that will be required as rescue aircraft have all been repositioned to the south. There will be no VHF, VOR's, mobile phones or power to pump fuel from underground stocks in the hardest hit areas for some time. I hope everyone has a serviceable HF if they are going in there afterwards and an ELT. The first vis conditions after the event to be avbl for heli movements will be low coastal. Trying to reposition back to the coast from behind the range will be folly for some time. Its the mini cyclones in the periphery that do the most damage, having attended the cleanup of Tracy for three weeks or so, I am almost at the stage where I wish to turn the media off, being too far away to help or be of service and frightened witless by what I am seeing. There was only two aircraft that survived on the darwin airport without damage out of a hundred or so. The big tough cyclone rated hangars counted for nought. alomost certainly the Garbutt RAAF base and airport at townsville will be flooded. Here is a link on the Jo Nova site to demonstrate the size. Its only 6hP short of the biggest ever to hit mainland OZ. Yasi 2011 — Cyclonic force of nature « JoNova […]

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    Llew Jones

    Incidentally thought of posting my observation over the years that if it’s in drought in one region or part of the world it is made up for in some other region or part with rain but thought, until I noticed Spencer had the same notion, that it sounded a bit unscientific crazy. Perhaps I’m in the wrong discipline. What’s the pay like at BOM?

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    george

    A couple of hours on, the winds re-appear for Willis Island on BoM…

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    […] I know this is a USA thread but you may be interested in a massive cyclone "Yasi" [ Hurricane, Cyclone or Typhoon depending on what part of the globe you reside ] that is boring into north Queensland in the NE of Australia. Massive and mandatory evacuations of some many tens of thousands of people are under way as Yasi is expected to make landfall tonight as a Cat 5 cyclone with winds of some estimated 300 kph or 185 mph or more. To get some idea of the size and power of this monster try Joanne Nova's site. Yasi 2011 — Cyclonic force of nature « JoNova […]

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    kuhnkat

    Even if you are not a believer, please pray for these people!!

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    Mark D.

    It doesn’t look good. I hope everyone has left the area and that only material things will be lost. Undoubtedly it will take time to repair, replace and replant. I’ll say those prayers, and I’ll hope too.

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    Vince Whirlwind

    Correction: the map outline used for “the UK” is in fact a map outline of the British Isles.

    Effective science communication is enhanced when you get it right.

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    A reminder of 1999 in Western Australia :#
    Catalyst: Super Cyclone – ABC TV Science

    Cyclone Vance was Australia’s biggest recorded cyclone. It hit the North Coast of Western Australia in 1999 with 267 km/h winds. Homes and buildings built to withstand cyclonic …
    http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/​s382613.htm · Cached page [Not working] Ed

    Try this link: [ http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s382613.htm ]Ed

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    wes george

    Climate looters
    by Walter Starck

    http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2011/01/climate-looters

    January 31, 2011

    Climate alarmists join looters in exploiting flood tragedy

    Disasters bring out the best and worst in humanity. For most, it’s a time to set aside petty differences and unite in a common cause. Altruism becomes the norm and genuine heroism common. For a rancid few, however, the temptation to take advantage of tragedy and chaos cannot be resisted. As always, the recent floods have been accompanied by a smattering of looting and price gouging amidst overwhelming acts of selflessness.

    Nor has the looting been restricted to property and purse. Some have seized the chance to blame climate change and push the alarmist agenda. They are what might aptly be described as climate looters. To their credit, the majority of proponents of global warming have not attempted to claim the floods as due to human induced climate change. However, for a few it seems the temptation was too great to resist and, as might now be expected, the media have afforded them prominent coverage. Also not unexpectedly, the ABC has been prominent in propagating this blatant alarmist opportunism…

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  • #
    GBees

    At this site they use a methodology (statistical prediction scheme, employing logistic regression) to predict tropical cyclone activity in the Southern Hemisphere…

    http://www.meteo.nc/espro/previcycl/cyclA.php#2

    Good to see no CO2 emmissions as a variable in the regression model in the Leroy/Wheeler Paper

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    charlesd

    Just curious, but where do figures like “295 km/hr” come from? Where were they measured and how? Are they real, sea level, speeds? As far as I can see, there are no weather stations that have recorded gusts even remotely like this, yet. Willis Island got to 185 kph and went offline, but that speed was with the eye wall pretty close.

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    Baa Humbug

    A couple of hours to go before landfall.

    I think Yasi has spread herself out too far. I don’t think it’s going to be as bad as people are making it out to be. (lets hope so ha)

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    David

    Come on folks, surely you know that there was never any extreme weather before ‘climate change’ became a religion…

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    Ian Mott

    Better duck out and buy some bananas, folks. You won’t be seeing any for quite a while. And even if you do they will be $18/kg. And lets hope the clowns at the RBA have the nous to adjust the weighting of bananas in the CPI statistical shopping basket so we don’t all get slugged with a 50 basis point interest rate rise to “reel in” the nonexistent inflationary pressure from high priced bananas that never even made it out of the plantation. Don’t laugh, thats what they did after TC Larry.

    And I bet a slab of XXXX that before the year is out we will have some clown claiming the Lemuroid Ringtail Possum has been pushed closer to extinction by AGW. These little fuzzies only live above 1200m in the hills behind Innisfail and usually cop an extra 100km/hour on whatever wind speed is doing the rounds at sea level. So if you think there might be a few humans with their asses bared to the wind then spare a thought for these little fuzzies who will really do it tough tonight.

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    Louis Hissink

    T Harley @ #42

    Your link no longer exists – the ABC might have taken it down.

    [It was a typo in the link now fixed] Ed

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  • #

    All the best to the Queenslanders.
    From safe little Denmark I have the news constantly on to hear updates, hope this giant will fizzle out soon, but….

    K.R. Frank

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    Pete Hayes

    Good luck to all in its path and we are all looking to see you come safe, if wet,through the storm.

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    UPDATE: All the latest videos of Yasi can be found on the following hub:
    http://cyclone.videohq.tv

    They have people on the ground right now, providing video feeds and feedback from most affected areas.

    I hope that’s useful.

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    Posted At 13:50 GMT – Cairns Radar realtime imaging of it coming ashore.

    http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDR191.loop.shtml#skip

    Pointman

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    Met Office reply to FOI request:

    “Please supply copies of all communications between the Met Office
    and government departments since 1st August 2010 that refer to
    long-range forecasts covering this winter’s weather.”

    http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/this_winters_weather_forecast_go

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    Mark D.

    Charlesd @ 45:

    Just curious, but where do figures like “295 km/hr” come from? Where were they measured and how? Are they real, sea level, speeds? As far as I can see, there are no weather stations that have recorded gusts even remotely like this, yet. Willis Island got to 185 kph and went offline, but that speed was with the eye wall pretty close.

    I don’t know exactly how BOM measured the wind speeds (perhaps with Doppler radar) but it is published here:

    http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/wrap_fwo.pl?IDQP0005.txt

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    John from CA

    Southeast Quadrant Satellite Loop
    http://www.bom.gov.au/cyclone/satellite/sequadrant.shtml

    The eyewall has thankfully collapsed. Hopefully the storm on the heels of Yasi will break up.

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    Ian Mott

    Looks like Lake Eyre will get a good inflow this season as well. Thats 3 years in a row and a good sign for Pelican-kind.

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    Bernd Felsche

    This isn’t even a hypothesis but I had a chance to look at a map of recent earthquakes and there’ve been a number of significant ones (magnitude of about 5 or more) in the “calving grounds” of our East coast’s tropical cyclones.

    Does submarine volcanic activity contribute to sea surface temperature?

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