To all our Australian friends ( Archived) (22)

missed darwin and apparently headed out to sea... lucky i think to miss that one.

good :-) want you all safe and sound

thanks... you too

hey, I just want to keep you around for the sheer entertainment value... I wanna know what's going to happen with you and Mag!

lamo

well as long as i can keep you all entertained... my job here is done.. LOL

jeesh, j...that's all you want is to ...entertain?

glad your ok say the news pics were bad

well what more do you want star ?? LOL

The category 5 Cyclone Monica crossed the coast 30 kms to the West of Maningrida. Maningrida is an Aboriginal community of about 200 people. Roofs were blown off but no one was seriously injured. The building codes got pretty stick after Cyclone Tracy in 1974.

Cyclone categorys are a little different from the categories that you use for hurricans in the Atlantic. Category 5 is about as big as you get. They thought that a 5 was as much as the South Pacific Ocean with the Papuan, Solomon and New Hebrides archepeligos could generate. Cyclones often cross the York Peninsula weakening and then build up in the Gulf of Carpentaria. The realatively small Timor Sea area has kept cyclones going at destructive strength. But 5 was about as big as they thought it could get. They may have to revise that.

It is interesting that the US Navy web site predicted the path of this cyclone with better accuracy than the Australian Government Met Bureau. I suspect that was because the US Navy took into account the Australian Continental Jet Stream. It was oscilating South as Monica was crossing the Timor Sea from East to West. I tracked the cyclone by using the Gove, Katherine and then Darwin Rainfall Radar. You could easily distinguish the clear eye of the cyclone and the rain around it. It was actually out of range of Gove Radar for a while and I had to use the satelite images off the Met Bureau web site. It came back into Darwin Radar range about an hour before it hit Jabiru. The Met Bureau warnings at that time had only come at 8.00 pm and then 11.00 pm local time. We knew it was coming but I don't think the warnings on it's direction were often enough. Anyway I was tracking it by radar and satelite picture and was able to warn the Jabiru Power workers that destructive winds were about a half hour away. It was still well organised (had a well defined eye) near Jabiru which is 60 kilometres inland. Most storm watchers know that as soon as a cyclone or hurrican moves over land it looses it's "fuel". That "fuel" is warm moist air which only comes from the surface of an ocean with water temperature greater than 27 degres celcius. Land cannot provide a cyclone or hurrican with enough fuel. The fact that the cyclone was still very destructive 60 kilometres inland shows how intense it was. The cyclone turned West from Jabiru and eventually crossed Darwin. My opinion is that it had "disorganised" to a rain depression by that time for there was little wind. The Met Bureau was still issuing cyclone warnings but I think they must have been coming from 6000 kms South in Canberra issued by a "junior. It was ANZAC Day holiday the next day and I suspect peole had "left their post".

Five Aboriginal Communities and the Uranium mining/ Tourist town of Jabiru had extensive damage with roofs blown off and electrical utility infrastructure damaged. But there have been no reports of serious injury so far.

It was fortunate that the cyclone did head West rather than South towards Katherine. Katherine a town of about 5000 people recently had major flooding. They did not need another big rain.

Thank you for your concern and interest.

Bureau of Meterology Homepage

Look for the "Radar Images" second down in the right hand column. Click on that and you will get a map of Australia with all the Radar sites in position. You may have to scroll down. When you have selected a sceen with interesting weather click one of the "Loop" buttons and it will animate the last 4 pictures showing you where the rainfall is traveling.

Wow, I'm almost sorry I asked! lol

Jk, it was very interesting, I lived through Hurricane Andrew in South Florida 13+ years ago. How do you know so much about weather things?