Cyclones (or Hurricanes)

Remember hurricane Katrina or Cylcone Larry a few years back. The former flattened New Orleans and was a major catastrophe, and the latter hit far North Queensland between Cairns and Innisfail, but with much less damage. Both were category 5 storms.

Well, Cyclone Yasi is just about to hit between Innisfail and Cardwell to the south and it's also category 5. But this storm is huge ... huge. It's roughly twice the size of Larry in diameter and the central windspeed is reported at 290km per hour (180 mph). Compare that with some of the winter storms lashing the English Channel or the North Sea. My guess it's several orders of magnitude higher. The storm is likely to flood much of tropical Queensland north of Rockhampton - itself on the tropic of Capricorn and this will mean that almost the whole state - an area this size of western Europe - will have been subject to flooding.

The picture shows, courtesy of the Bureau of Meteorology, the storm and its eye clearly and I'd estimate its diameter at about 1500km!

This summer is becoming harsh even in little old Armidale. We have now had more than a week of >30C temperatures and as I was driving our car around this afternoon its external thermometer was registering 34C (93F). And don't forget that my home is similar in altitude to the summit of Mt Snowdon. It's also very humid and I can hear thunder as I type. This is the hottest summer in two decades, but bearable.

AS