Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Cyclone Yasi not a super-cyclone

Contrary to the hype, Yasi was not the mother of all storms:
Severe Tropical Cyclone Yasi, which hit North Queensland last week, was one of the more intense cyclones in Australia's recent history.

A massive category 5 storm over 600 kilometres wide, it clocked wind speeds of 295 kilometres per hour at its greatest intensity.

But it was no super-cyclone, nor was it the biggest cyclone Australia has ever seen, says Dr Jeff Kepert, head of the High Impact Weather Research Team in the Bureau of Meteorology.
Yasi, a "marginal Category 5 system", was a powerful storm but wasn't the exceptional cyclone it was made out to be.

3 Comments:

Anonymous spot said...

I recommend having a look at these two posts:

"How Strong Was Yasi?-Update 11 Feb"

and

"The Danger of Hype"

Especially that second one.

"In other words Yasi was a strong Cat 3 or very low Cat 4, not Cat 5. There is no evidence for winds of 290km/hr . The danger from Cyclone Yasi was exaggerated and over-hyped.

What’s the big deal? you may ask. Lives were saved.

True. Hyping the danger was a good short term tactic and worked. However, this is not a good long term strategy in our fight to defend ourselves from nature’s extremes.

The people of North Queensland may well say, “Well if that was 290 km/hr winds, the damage was bad, but not too bad. We’ll be right next time.”

But the damage from a cyclone with real 290 km/hr winds will be well over a thousand times worse than that caused by Yasi."


Plus, of course, the credibility those "in authority" lose whenever they bill everything as "unprecedented" and "record," and it turns out not to be (again).

9:03 PM  
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9:37 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Next headline;

Jeremy Sear not a super-lawyer.

Jeremy, a "marginal Category 5 barrister", was a powerful blowhard but wasn't the exceptional thinker he was made out to be.

2:21 PM  

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