Last night at 10pm the ABC was featuring 230kph winds in headlines. Cyclone categories. This morning the max gusts I can see for Cape Flattery are about 160. Lucky.
Can anybody find anemometer readings over 160kph ?
Last night at 10pm the ABC was featuring 230kph winds in headlines. Cyclone categories. This morning the max gusts I can see for Cape Flattery are about 160. Lucky.
Can anybody find anemometer readings over 160kph ?
Study shows that current seasonal cyclone activity is at its lowest level in Western Australia since 500 AD and since about 1400 AD in Queensland. That decline began about 40 years ago.
theconversation.com/tropical-cyclone-frequency-falls-to-centuries-low-in-australia-but-will-the-lull-last-20814
Maybe cyclone alarmist forecasting has its place to ‘help’ the local people realise how important it is to take necessary precautions. Unfortunately when the predicted disaster doesn’t eventuate it will make the public less interested next time.
Will the predicted 230km winds be recorded as reality in some future accounts? I suspect that they will, and then they will be used as evidence of climate change driven storm frequency increases.
Warwick, I thought it would be downgraded. Too much hype just like Yasi which was a category 3. This time however, the storm surge did not coincide with a king tide. BOM should let the engineers at the Cyclone Testing Station in Townsville www.jcu.edu.au/cts/ do the estimates of path, landfall and strength. They will be doing the damage assessment as they have since Tracy (1974) when it was set up. Only engineers can understand the fluid dynamics and heat & mass transfer involved in cyclone formation and movement. BOM has no registered professional engineers.
It is time for the government to sort out BOM, CSIRO. and the funding of all those pretend university centres who send out false messages about climate and environment.
I posted on Yasi
Cyclone Yasi has been exaggerated by Govts and beaten up by media
www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=811
I do not know where these wind speeds of 250-290kmh come from we read in the media – are they from some calculations off satellite images ?
The headlines should be along lines – “Ita rain a boon to FNQ economy” – as you can see by this BoM map of 3 months rain deciles.
I think the problem comes from the definition
Tropical Cyclone Intensity
Tropical cyclone intensity is defined by the maximum mean wind speed over open flat land or water. This is sometimes referred to as the maximum sustained wind and will be experienced around the eye-wall of the cyclone.
www.bom.gov.au/cyclone/about/intensity.shtml
www.bom.gov.au/cyclone/faq/index.shtml#definitions
The eye wall probably never hit on the weather station at Flattery
The destructive core was small and tight
THe eye was disintegrating and some reports say a double yoker reduces intensity
THe BOM tech notes indicate varying wind strength from the core
forum.weatherzone.com.au/ubbthreads.php/topics/1258667/Re_Severe_Tropical_Cyclone_Ita#Post1258667
No signs of CAT 4 damage?…yes. Great media hype as usual.. has critical thinking gone out of the window
Sigh .. queue the “its all an exaggeration” posts …
Here is a link to the knuckle down screw tight ultra verified hurricane hunter tested 30 year in the making automated Dvorak intensity estimates (I can point you towards reams of Dvorak estimate literature if you are interested – but a simple google of Dvorak ADT should suffice)
tropic.ssec.wisc.edu/real-time/adt/23P-list.txt
Convert 105 knot 1 minute mean to gust (x 1.2 for ocean environments) and to km/h (*1.85) and what do you get … 233 km/h.
Here’s the tricky question, Warwick, can you figure out why it was less than that at Cape Flattery?
George
ps
here is a hint I got from a weather forum
[IMG] i61.tinypic.com/25fhues.jpg [/IMG]
George
Quote Geoge Bailley
April 12, 2014 at 10:16 pm
“Sigh .. queue the “its all an exaggeration” posts …”
Sigh … The exaggeration posts were 3 days ago:
Weatherzone – Cyclone Ita compared to Tracy, Larry and Yasi
www.weatherzone.com.au/news/cyclone-ita-compared-to-tracy-larry-and-yasi/38939
Winds could reach 173 mph (280 km/h) when the storm lashes the coast, the BOM said in a statement.
Category 5 hurricanes have winds greater than 157 mph (252 km/h).
www.livescience.com/44737-tropical-cyclone-ita-prediction-australia.html
Consider these posts a ‘clean-up’ after the exaggeration.
Handjive- on the Weatherzone web site on the top left you will see Fairfax media and under the comparison you will see ABC. The story is exaggerated and biased as is most stories on the ABC. The ABC is trying to justify its existence.
Prof Dr George Walker (see here www.google.com.au/?gws_rd=cr#q=Dr%20George%20Walker) has examined all the cyclones since Tracy (1974). He makes estimates of wind forces by the damage caused eg metal poles and roads signs pushed over or flattened. In a talk after Yasi he said that Tracey was the equivalent of a category 5 cyclone which was narrow and confined. Yasi was the equivalent of a category 3 cyclone. It was one of the widest cyclones experienced in Australia. The wider a cyclone the less intensity.
One indicator of cyclone intensity is the pressure close to the centre. Normal atmospheric pressure is 101.3 kPa (or 1013mb). Very intense cyclones & tornedos can get down to 93 kpa. I understand that the lowest pressure of Ita was 96 kPa which puts it at a category 3 or less. Certainly, pictures of the damage I have seen would make Ita less destructive than Yasi and so at most category 3.
Judith Sloan at Catallaxy has a say on it all too – go Judith –
That’s Far North Queensland, mate
catallaxyfiles.com/2014/04/13/thats-far-north-queensland-mate/
Handjive: You are not correct – Australian Category 5 TCs have winds >= 280 km/hr. As I expected – the responses here have been along the line of “it was exaggerated”.
Ita went through an eyewall replacement cycle just prior to landfall (see the imagery I linked to previously). That is, a secondary eyewall formed outside the primary eyewall, causing a decreased pressure gradient near the zone of maximum winds. This dropped the central wind speed maxima down rapidly over a period of a few hours. The intensity stays down whilst the old eyewall is eroded and prior to the new eyewall becoming dominant. This was very fortunate for the mostly deserted region where Ita crossed the coast.
As I understand it the ERC process is the least understood of all of the tropical storm forecast challenges – especially if there is no aircraft reconnaisance. It appears as though the bureau identified this process and dropped the intensity prior to landfall. This is also reflected in the ADT data that I linked to.
Cemented friend: Your assertion that the wider the cyclone the less intense it is is completely unfounded in any research or documentation that I can source. Additionally, the lowest pressure recorded is in Typhoon Tip (87 kPa => 870 hPa).
To all: If you wish to earn respect in the (science) community – then balanced researched statements ar the way to go. I participate here because someone has to take a stand when a) nonsense is put forward as fact, b) people are far too willing to unreasonably criticise, castigate, and cast aspersions on people carrying out good science without having some basic understanding of the nature of the science they are debating.
George
George Bailley the comment about intensity and width of cyclones came Dr George Walker who obtained a Masters of Engineering in Fluid Dynamics. I would suggest he knows more about cyclones than all the people you can think of put together. Probably, you are looking in the wrong journals -maybe you should look at journals on Fluid Dynamics but then you do not have engineering qualifications.
By the way have you ever looked at this website www.bioticregulation.ru/pubs/pubs2.php . The content is in English
It always pays to keep an open mind especially if your knowledge is limited.
George, you introduced exaggeration’ into this thread, and you then proceed to castigate others for it.
Had you been concerned about the science, you would have talked about forecasting bias, but then I know you are not.
Hi George.
If my sources are wrong, I can only refer you to my comment* further down in this reply.
I read your comments and understand you are informed.
Re your last paragraph; To all:
I don’t wish to earn the respect in the (science) community.
The science community has lost my respect and this sort of alarmism is why.
*At the moment, every BoM projection for this type of weather event, or any other for that matter, is over-estimated.
Every time it is biased to being ‘worse than we first thought”.
Whether it is over or under estimated, it is wrong.
The fact that the failures are consistently one way should be a warning to anyone who watches KPI numbers.
Quote: “balanced researched statements are the way to go”
Should I refer to the latest UN-IPCC for balanced research?
Surely you jest? [http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2014/04/12/the-ipcc-bar-the-media-welcome-the-activists/]
Quote: “and cast aspersions on people carrying out good science without having some basic understanding of the nature of the science they are debating.”
Sir, I offer this video of how I understand the science of carbon dioxide on a planet that has warmed coming out of the Little Ice Age.
www.cbc.ca/player/News/TV+Shows/The+National/Environment/ID/2400486561/
I see nothing of the science you come here to defend in that video.
look at this wesite which records TC Ita’s evolution……
www.gdacs.org/Cyclones/report.aspx?eventid=44373&episodeid=4&eventtype=TC
On the 4/10/2014 6:00:00 PM GDACS had Ita a Category 4 with a Wind speed of 249 km/h (155 mph) and Wind gusts of 306 km/h (189 mph)…..it is difficult to tell which system GDACS is using…………..the Australian tropical cyclone intensity scale or The United States uses the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.
The BoM on the same day at 7pm had Ita classified Category 5.
The BoM has consistently had the cyclone as more intense than GDACS…….why?
Cementfriend: An engineer with a masters degree in fluid dynamics knows more about cyclones than all of the PhD’s who have ever contributed to “Weather and Forecasting”, a PhD physicist has a wacky theory on moisture and hurricanes, next thing you’ll be telling me the CO2 “greenhouse effect” is grossly exaggerated, gamma ray flux is resulting in less low cloud, and there was a second gunman behind the grassy knoll.
Phillip: “cyclone alarmist forecasting”, “Too much hype”, “Cyclone Yasi has been exaggerated”. All before I commented – and you thought I brought exaggeration into the thread. Sigh. BTW what we’re talking about is observation bias, not forecasting bias. I pointed you towards the knuckle down screw tight ultra verified hurricane hunter tested 30 year in the making automated Dvorak intensity estimates. Your response – a content free attack. I assume your next post will to be to call me a troll and then disappear until the next thread.
Redress: Look at the FAQ. Cyclone: National Hurricane Center, Joint Typhoon Warning Center, that is the US military in the second Center’s case. They forecast 1 minute mean winds. (gusts are stronger), and the category is the USA Saffir Simpson category, which is different from the the Australian. category. AFAIK the strengths here are less than the Queensland weather people put on their advisory (I don’t remember seeing >300km/h in Australian reports).
Catch you all a months time when I get back from Europe!
FWIW George, I don’t consider you a troll.
But, if you you really think the climate science of the BoM/UN-IPCC is accurate and sound, I hope you are not flying in a fossil fuelled jet to Europe.
Because, if you are, you a hypocrite of the highest order, and, after your fossil fuelled jaunt around the world, contributing to this global warming you ‘believe’ is happening, you then come back, further debating the BoM global warming inspired science, then, quite so, you are a troll of the worst kind.
PS. Enjoy the many man-made wonders of Europe, many developed during Roman warming period, before people travelled in jets.
PPS. Did you enjoy the video and the science of the disappearing desert I linked for you?
I notice there is no comment from you about the observed science contradicting with BoM/UN-IPCC climate science predictions.
George, we are discussing the forecasts, ergo any biases are forecasting biases. No one is questioning the observations.
BTW, the UK Met Office has recently admitted they have forecast biases.
www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulhudson/posts/Met-Office-global-forecasts-too-warm-in-13-of-last-14-years
Banana grower – “We were totally shocked when we found our bananas still standing … we went way better than I ever thought because I thought we were blown away,” he said.
www.abc.net.au/local/photos/2014/04/15/3985613.htm?site=farnorth
80% of his crop is OK apparently.
… seriously .. I care too much about some things .. from some random airport lounge ..
Philip the complaints hve been about the analysis of intensity of the TC .. ergo it is an observation error, not a forecast error. Proper terminology is important.
Now, if I dont stop responding to this blog you can all quite rightly call me a tosser. I’m supposed to be on holiday and my partner quite rightly expects better of me.