Cyclone Ita Prepares To Smash Far North Queensland

Cyclone Ita is now expected to hit Far North Queensland as a Category 5 storm, winds of 280kmh predicted, with a predicted path of destruction that could spread from Cooktown to Cairns.

Still a chance it can blow out a bit, and reduce, before making landfall Friday night, April 11, or lose some of its power when it starts crossing the coast. Maybe. Hopefully. But it's looking like it's going to wreak some terrible destruction and kill people before it's done.

Here's how the storm looked from satellites on Thursday afternoon:

This is the predicted path of Cyclone Ita late Thursday afternoon.

And the infrared view:

Updates to follow.

That's A Big Storm

More than $60 million will be spent in the next few months building 10 new storm shelters to protect 5000 Queenslanders from Category 5 cyclones. But just how strong does the Queensland government, and generous United Arab Emirates donors, think future cyclones are going to be?

From Cairns.com.au :

The United Arab Emirates's gift of $30 million is being matched by the Queensland Government.

“Far North Queensland is right in the firing line during cyclone season and this generous gift from Abu Dhabi is a catalyst for new shelters in the region,’’ Ms Bligh said.

The shelters will be designed and constructed to Category 5 standard and to provide protection to more than 500 people each from winds up to 3000km/h, windborne debris and storm tide inundation.

“We will build these shelters as quickly as we can and I want as many as possible to open progressively during 2012,’’ Ms Bligh said.

The fastest wind speed ever recorded on Planet Earth was on Australia's Barrow Island, during Cyclone Olivia in 1996. The anemometer recorded 408kmh.

Either the quoted wind speed in the Cairns Post story is a mistake (obviously) or Queensland is expected to encounter Neptune-strength cyclones.

There is a strong belief in Far North Queensland, in government, local councils and disaster management, that the area truly dodged a bullet, and escaped an horrific death toll, when the eye of the 500km wide Cyclone Yasi unexpectedly collapsed shortly after coming ashore. The event exposed a shocking lack of available shelters built to withstand Category 5 cyclones. Townsville, for instance, had no cyclone shelters at all.

Feb 2, 2011 - The Night Of The SuperStorm

Mother Nature's War On Humans continues. Two cyclones now look to be threatening the Northern Territory. No emergency warnings issued for Darwin as of 1opm tonight, but schools and many businesses will be closed tomorrow, just in case.



Latest warnings from the Bureau of Meteorology can be found here.

The Night Of The SuperStorm

By Darryl Mason

(scroll down for latest posts, all posts in Sydney time)

This isn't meant to be a comprehensive round-up of all things Cyclone Yasi, just notes from the news as it breaks, quotes from QLD call-in radio coverage and info chunks from Twitter, throughout this long & tragic night.

Wednesday

10pm : The latest Bureau of Meteorology progress projection for Cyclone Yasi :



11.45pm : Cyclone Yasi is still a Category 5 storm and its full force is about to slam into Innisfail, the Queensland coastal town of 10,000 utterly devastated by Cyclone Larry five years ago.

11:47pm : Sounds like the 300kmh eye of Yasi is not going to hit Cairns. Lucky Cairns.

Thursday

12:12am : More than 100,000 homes in the path of Yasi have lost power. Power has been cut to the biggest evacuation centre in Cairns.

12:16am : People trapped in their homes as Yasi hits Townsville are calling police for help, but rescues are now impossible. Huge storm surges hitting coastal homes at Townsville.

12:20am : Latest Bureau of Meteorology update. 290kmh winds reported between Cairns and Ingham. "Very destructive winds" expected to last until 4am.

12:27am : The latest BoM satellite image as Yasi reaches land :



12:33am : North Queenslanders plan to ride out mega-cyclone drinking at their local pub. "She'll be right."

12:41am : Cairns locals kept their sense of humour.

12:42am : Caller to ABC Local Radio QLD asked "How's it going there?" Answer : "Yeah, great! Bit windy but."

12:50am : 7 metre storm surge expected to swamp some 10,000 homes in Townsville by dawn. "A tsunami combined with a storm," as ABC's Mark Colvin suggested. Townsville has lost power, winds of about 12okmh sweeping through the town.

12:54am : On Twitter, Queenslanders dealing with 120-150kmh reporting windows, doors bulging & bending, brick buildings shuddering, roofs lifting. Trying to imagine winds rising to almost 300kmh is filling them with terror. Twitter stream is #TCYasi.

1:27am : Caller Debbie from Townsville on ABCRadio QLD describes sitting in dark, listening to radio, crocheting by candlelight. "It's like living back in 1920!"

1:30am : Twitterers in Townsville describing "upside down rain", rain looks like it is falling up, not down.

1:32am : Surreal moment on Channel 7 news live coverage. Reporter Matt White in Cairns begs people not to go outside. He was standing outside as he made this plea.

1:33am : Caller to ABCRadio QLD describes eye of Yasi passing over Mission Beach, total calm, sky so clear he could see the stars.

2:01am : Full fury of Yasi now hitting Innisfail, reports of damage to homes, businesses, local infrastructure. Police receiving more calls from people begging for help, police unable to do anything but talk them through it. Four hours of storm fury still to come.

2:40am : Cairns central business district still has power, traffic lights and street lights still on.

3:02am : Apparently the storm surge near Townsville arrived earlier than expected and didn't combine with the morning tide, instead they acted against each other. This means the expected storm surge damage to homes along the beaches will not be as bad as predicted. Great news.

3:07am : In Sydney at least, channels 10, 9 and 7 have decided infommercials are more important than live coverage of one of the biggest cyclones in Australia's recorded history.

3:25am : Sounds like Cairns has escaped the worst of Cyclone Yasi's winds & storm surge. More great news.

3:26am : Satellite images apparently showing collapse of cyclone's eye, still a dangerous cyclone, but soon to be downgraded. Something miraculous appears to be happening.

3:33am : A roundup on online & print newspaper front pages from last night and this morning.

Brisbane Times :



Courier Mail :



Adelaide Advertiser :



Herald Sun :




Northern Territory News :

Cyclone Yasi : "It Is Too Late To Evacuate"



Cyclone Yasi is a Category 5 storm now hitting hundreds of kilometres of Northern Queensland coastline. The world famous resort of Cairns is expected to suffer incredible damage tonight by winds reaching 300kmh and a storm surge higher than 4 metres.

Dozens more coastal towns will be swamped by wave surges not seen in generations. The full extent of the damage to tens of thousands of homes and businesses along hundreds of kilometres of Queensland coast is impossible to estimate, but 4000 pre-deployed Australian soldiers in Townsville (also expected to be hit by Cyclone Yasi) have been told to expect the worst.

Many of the evacuation centres now filled with thousands of peoples are not rated for a Category 5 cyclone.

The Queensland premier, Anna Bligh, and the prime minister, Julia Gillard, have both announced it is too late for people to get out. They are being told to stay in their homes, to shelter in bathrooms or basements, failing that, to take shelter anywhere, and too prepare for days without power and water.

Satellite images from yesterday of Cylone Yasi's arrival :





QLD premier Anna Bligh, 4:12pm :

"No-one should be leaving home now, that time has passed. You should be sheltering wherever you are."

2000 people are now taking shelter in a shopping mall in Cairns central business district, in the path of the cyclone. Evacuees are telling ABCNews24 the shopping centre is "full".

This is going to be apocalyptic.

ABC News Online is running near constant updates & important information here.

The State Emergency Service number is : 132 500

You can follow Queensland police services on Twitter : @QPSMedia

Or follow the Twitter hashtag : #TCYasi.

More to come...

From imagery by NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites, twin tropical cyclones over the South Pacific on March 15:


(click to enlarge)

More On The Cyclones From Earth Observatory

The twin cyclones hit the Solomon Islands and Fiji hard. Cyclone Tomas has been hammering Fiji for four days. Dozens of homes were damaged in the Solomon Islands. The death toll is rising in Fiji.

UPDATE : Tourist resorts off the Queensland coast are now being evacuated.



.

Cyclone Olga barrels towards Port Douglas and Cooktown :

Cyclones Heading For East And West Coasts

What's climate change? Don't be alarmed, this is all very normal, global warming is a big Al Gore conspiracy (Andrew Bolt says so) and these kind of bizarre weather events have been happening for millions of years....maybe :

Parks and wildlife rangers have begun evacuating holidaymakers from Fraser Island as an intense low pressure system packing gale-force winds headed for the popular tourist destination north of Queensland's Sunshine Coast.

As the volatile system headed slowly south, threatening to bring huge waves and high winds to much of the Queensland coast, the Bureau of Meteorology said there was a significant risk of a severe tropical cyclone developing on the other side of the country, off Western Australia's northwest coast.

There's a good chance that both 'cyclones' will blow themselves out before they do any real damage. Or not. It's always disturbing to hear meteorologists on TV saying stuff like "We don't really know what's going to happen." And of course they don't.

We just wish that they did.