More Big Weather!

[dianel]

Oh dear! A HUGE cyclone is headed for the Queensland coast. Should arrive there Wed night or Thurs morning. It's name is Yasi. On the satellite images its diameter would cover the whole Queensland coast.

[MarkCDodd]

Not so much the winds but a King Tide is what they are afraid of.

It is cyclone season so the appearance of one or two is expected but the ground is still so water logged a king tide would cause more flooding than usual.

A late summer is what I was afraid of in Victoria.

I was up in the Dandenongs today and after two 40 degree days the lush growth from all the rain is just dried out fuel waiting for a spark.

It was nice and cool in Sherbrooke Forest though...

[snoopysue]

They mentioned that on the news here, hope it's not as bad as everyone fears.

[MarkCDodd]

Its getting worse as it gets closer.

Catagory 4 wind and 1000mm of rain.

500KM across with an eye of 100KM.

That is huge, scary and deadly.

It looks liekthey will evacute at least 250,000 people on the next few hours.

Meanwhile all I can gripe about is blistered feet after going out to the maibox bare footed.

Ouchy....

[snoopysue]

Its getting worse as it gets closer.

Catagory 4 wind and 1000mm of rain.
500KM across with an eye of 100KM.
That is huge, scary and deadly.
It looks liekthey will evacute at least 250,000 people on the next few hours.

Meanwhile all I can gripe about is blistered feet after going out to the maibox bare footed.
Ouchy....

That's dreadful for the people concerned.
And it begs the question - wht did you go to the mail box with no shoes on?)

[MarkCDodd]

When you are a kid you tend to run around without shoes and you feet end up like leather.

When you are older you tend to forget how hot your paved driveway can get when the temp is 41 degrees.

It was OK walking to the letter box.

Its when I stood there opening one of hte letters that my feet started roasting.

[snoopysue]

When you are a kid you tend to run around without shoes and you feet end up like leather.

When you are older you tend to forget how hot your paved driveway can get when the temp is 41 degrees.

It was OK walking to the letter box.

Its when I stood there opening one of hte letters that my feet started roasting.

I remember working along a tarmaced road with no shoes on as a kid in the summer. I remember making makeshift shoes out of dock leaves - strange as I almost certainly was carrying my sandles!!

[MarkCDodd]

They have upped it to Grade 5 but it looks like it will hit Cairns rather than Brisbane or The Sunshine Coast or The Gold Coast.

They have issued a tsunami warning so that is the King Tide I was worried about coming to cause havoc.

I have some good friends in Cairns and they have left their house not knowing if it will be there when its over.

[snoopysue]

I have some good friends in Cairns and they have left their house not knowing if it will be there when its over.

I can't imagine that.
It was bad enough when my husband's house burnt (before we moved in together) it was so surrealistic. Not everything was destroyed, but nearly everything was smoke and/or water damaged. We could at least see what everything was, which was invaluable for the insurance. But for ages afterwards, if I walked past somewhere that had a woodburning stove, the smell of it was far from pleasant!

[grangers14]

Certainly scarry stuff. A friend of mine has gone to stay with friends out of her home in Cairns.
Hope all the people stay safe.
Jo

[dianel]

Yasi crossed the coast last night and is now working her way inland, still a category 2 cyclone last I heard. She will be causing havoc in places that have never experienced this sort of event before. Fortunately she missed the larger centres of population and the crossing didn't exactly coincide with the high tide. Lots of places flooded from both storm surge and high rainfall though, and beautiful places like Mission Beach, Cardwell and Tully were hit hard. Destruction of both homes and forest looks awful, but there have been no reports yet of loss of life or serious injury. Fingers crossed that it stays that way!

Queensland people, their emergency services and governments, as well as the Bureau of Meteorology did a fantastic job in making sure that everyone was so well-prepared.
I spent hours last night glued to the forums on Weather Zone, too scared to look away, but it crashed just as Yasi made landfall at Mission Beach (one of my favourite places in the world).

[MarkCDodd]

The Banana and Sugar Cane plantations have been wiped out.

The newly contructed houses survived mostly intact thanks to the updated regulations.

I have just seen the first aerial survey of Tully and there are many many building completly gone.

These tend to be of older construction.

Mt Isa will be hit by the storm tonight and their buildings, 900km inland, are mainly the older "Queenslander" type of construction so hopefully the winds don't get much beyond 100KMH.

[snoopysue]

Don't the winds drop off once it gets inland?

[MarkCDodd]

Yep. They get their power from thermals caused by warm water.

Thw inds have dropped from 280KMH to about 100KMH so Mt Isa should be OK.

[snoopysue]

They kept quoting wind speeds in km per hour here, normally it's meters per second - very confusing!!!