Posted on 03/20/2006 4:35:25 PM PST by blam
Australia bears onslaught of huge cyclone
11:22 20 March 2006
NewScientist.com news service
Emma Young, Sydney
A devastating tropical cyclone has ripped through north-eastern Australia, injuring people and destroying homes with gusts of up to 290 kilometres (180 miles) per hour. And another cyclone – the Southern hemisphere's hurricane equivalent – is on its way.
The first cyclone, named Larry, reached maximum (Category 5) intensity at about the time of landfall. It hit the coast at the town of Innisfail, about 100 kilometres (62 miles) south of Cairns, at 0700 Eastern Standard Time (AEST) on Monday. Larry is now weakening as it moves west over land and leaves its power source – evaporating ocean water – behind. By 2000 AEST it was about 400 km inland and had downgraded to a Category 2 storm.
It is not yet clear how many people have been injured but no serious injuries have been reported. Along the coast, residents have described houses blown away and trees uprooted. About half the houses in Innisfail have been damaged, according to emergency services. Millions of dollars worth of sugar cane and banana crops have also been destroyed.
A tent city will now be erected to house the homeless, and power workers will try to restore electricity to 50,000 homes in the north of the state. Innisfail resident Bruce Crozer spoke to ABC Radio as the cyclone approached: “It’s a shocker. It’s blowing a million miles an hour. I’m three kilometres west of town and I can’t see much at all. The rain is coming horizontal and it’s horrendous.”
Hurricane Katrina
Hundreds of people were evacuated from low-lying regions before the storm hit, and mandatory evacuations took place in Cairns on Monday. Schools in the area were closed.
Another cyclone, called Wati, is currently about 2000 km (1250 miles) east of Queensland. This cyclone is intensifying, and the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) expects it to hit Australia in a few days.
Larry’s maximum wind speeds were similar to those of Hurricane Katrina, which hit New Orleans in August 2005. But communities affected by Larry were not below sea level, so they were not at the same risk of devastating flooding.
It will take a few days to fully assess the property damage caused by Larry, but it could turn out to be the most destructive cyclone ever to hit Queensland, says the BoM’s Cyclone Warning Centre in Brisbane. Five Category 5 cyclones have been recorded in the past.
Recent research suggests that severe tropical cyclones, also called "super-cyclones", hit Australia's Great Barrier Reef coast every 200 to 300 years - 10 times more often than was previously thought (see 'Super-cyclone' threat to Great Barrier Reef raised).
1987? It seems I have some vague memories of that typhoon because that one seriously disrupted traffic between Taiwan and HK. My dad and mum were members of the Republic of China's Chinese History Society and they went to Taiwan for academic conferences about 3 times every year. In Nov 1987 because of typhoon disruptions, they stayed at Kai Tak Airport for a whole morning and afternoon before finally managing to go onboard a flight at 5 pm (scheduled flight at 10:30 am?) and they used the meal vouchers from the airline to buy something to eat for my sis and myself.
I was only 9 at that time so I could have remembered another occasion.
Hong Kong's Tropical Cyclone Warning Signals
Typhoon Signal No. 3. Schools and offices stay open
Typhoon Signal No. 8 (with directions indicating where the typhoon's wind blows from). All schools and offices close
Typhoon Signal No. 10. Hurricane-like condition
I don't think there is any similar warning system for the MetService.
,,, they're pretty much organised with a warning system like that, aren't they?
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