Cyclone Debbie hits Queensland, Australia

Due to failing memory, I'm going to call all the other cyclones 'Debbie' and this one 'Slagathor'.
 
Last edited:
Vixen said:
It's now downgraded from Category 4 to a Category 2 storm. Bit of a damp squib.
Click to expand...

Don't know why you would think that. It's a Cat 2 inland. It was nearly a Cat 5 when it hit. It's the news you don't know yet because communications are knocked out that is the problem. The area is also an intensive farming area that grows most of Australia's tomatoes, for example. When a cyclone hit the banana growing areas some time ago (ten years?), we pretty well had no bananas for a year.
 
Vixen said:
It's now downgraded from Category 4 to a Category 2 storm. Bit of a damp squib.
Click to expand...

a_unique_person said:
Don't know why you would think that. It's a Cat 2 inland. It was nearly a Cat 5 when it hit. It's the news you don't know yet because communications are knocked out that is the problem. The area is also an intensive farming area that grows most of Australia's tomatoes, for example. When a cyclone hit the banana growing areas some time ago (ten years?), we pretty well had no bananas for a year.
Click to expand...


Exactly.

Those "Categories" are essentially a scale of the wind intensity, based on maximum sustained winds.

This will give some idea of the scale of potential wind damage and storm surge when the storm makes landfall.

The thing is, most of the damage inflicted by hurricanes (cyclones, typhoons), both to life and property, is from the subsequent flooding after landfall.

If a storm drops from Cat 5 to Cat 2 all that means is that the max sustained winds have dropped from (using the Australian Scale) 198km/h to 117km/h.

Although 70mph winds are still nothing to be sneezed at the big threat is from the slow moving storm dropping lots and lots of rain in a short period of time. Rivers flood, dams wash out, crops are destroyed, people die. (Nearly always more than from the wind damage.)

Our last hurricane here back in Oct., Hurricane Matthew, had been downgraded from a Cat 5 to barely a Cat 1 by the time it grazed our coastline. And yet it managed to dump as much as 24" of water in less than two days as far as 100 miles inland.

26 people were killed. $1.6 billion worth of damage. By flooding, not storm winds.

People downstream in the major river basins were still waiting for the high water mark to get to them weeks after the storm had passed completely. Roads, bridges and dams are still being repaired. A couple of towns may not get rebuilt.

And that was just NC.

Very "damp squib".
 
Last edited:
top wind gust reported at Hamilton Is was 268km/h, but building code is pretty strict re cyclone tolerance
 
quadraginta said:
Exactly.

Those "Categories" are essentially a scale of the wind intensity, based on maximum sustained winds.

This will give some idea of the scale of potential wind damage and storm surge when the storm makes landfall.

The thing is, most of the damage inflicted by hurricanes (cyclones, typhoons), both to life and property, is from the subsequent flooding after landfall.

If a storm drops from Cat 5 to Cat 2 all that means is that the max sustained winds have dropped from (using the Australian Scale) 198km/h to 117km/h.

Although 70mph winds are still nothing to be sneezed at the big threat is from the slow moving storm dropping lots and lots of rain in a short period of time. Rivers flood, dams wash out, crops are destroyed, people die. (Nearly always more than from the wind damage.)

Our last hurricane here back in Oct., Hurricane Matthew, had been downgraded from a Cat 5 to barely a Cat 1 by the time it grazed our coastline. And yet it managed to dump as much as 24" of water in less than two days as far as 100 miles inland.

26 people were killed. $1.6 billion worth of damage. By flooding, not storm winds.

People downstream in the major river basins were still waiting for the high water mark to get to them weeks after the storm had passed completely. Roads, bridges and dams are still being repaired. A couple of towns may not get rebuilt.

And that was just NC.

Very "damp squib".
Click to expand...

Soz, perhaps 'damp squib' was an ill-considered phrase. I am quite hooked on following the paths of hurricanes and cyclones. One of The most memorable - aside from the obvious Katrina - for me was Hurricane Ike that hit Galveston. And of course, the town had the notorious one in in 1900.

I note Cyclone Debbie is said to be spinning in the opposite direction to ones in the USA, Bahamas, Caribbean: wouldn't that make it a typhoon? Or did it not initiate in that region?
 
Vixen.....

(Tropical) cyclone, typhoon and hurricane are different names for the same thing, depending on where in the world they occur.
 
Vixen said:
<snip>

I note Cyclone Debbie is said to be spinning in the opposite direction to ones in the USA, Bahamas, Caribbean: wouldn't that make it a typhoon? Or did it not initiate in that region?
Click to expand...


From a meteorological perspective they are all cyclones, i.e. very large air masses spinning around a low air pressure center. Whether they are called a "cyclone", a "hurricane", or a "typhoon" is a naming convention based on what part of the world they happen in. If it's in the South Pacific or the Indian Ocean it's called a cyclone.

The direction of spin is dependent on which hemisphere it forms in. North of the equator they spin counterclockwise, South of it they spin clockwise.
 
quadraginta said:
From a meteorological perspective they are all cyclones, i.e. very large air masses spinning around a low air pressure center. Whether they are called a "cyclone", a "hurricane", or a "typhoon" is a naming convention based on what part of the world they happen in. If it's in the South Pacific or the Indian Ocean it's called a cyclone.

The direction of spin is dependent on which hemisphere it forms in. North of the equator they spin counterclockwise, South of it they spin clockwise.
Click to expand...

Thanks - that is what I wanted to know. So it's like water going down a plughole, in effect.
 
quadraginta said:
Not quite.

Read this for a short primer.
Click to expand...

So different from a hurricane, in that it spirals.

A hurricane is a storm that occurs in the Atlantic Ocean and northeastern Pacific Ocean, a typhoon occurs in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, and a cyclone occurs in the south Pacific or Indian Ocean.[3]

Cyclones are characterized by inward spiraling winds that rotate about a zone of low pressure.
Click to expand...


Sorted.
 
Vixen said:
Thanks - that is what I wanted to know. So it's like water going down a plughole, in effect.
Click to expand...


Yeah.

Except that the plughole thing is a commonly propagated myth.

The Coriolis Force resulting from the Earth's spin on its axis has an effect on large scale phenomenon like cyclones, but it is far too weak to affect the water going down a drain.

Read this.
 
a_unique_person said:
Don't know why you would think that. It's a Cat 2 inland. It was nearly a Cat 5 when it hit. It's the news you don't know yet because communications are knocked out that is the problem. The area is also an intensive farming area that grows most of Australia's tomatoes, for example. When a cyclone hit the banana growing areas some time ago (ten years?), we pretty well had no bananas for a year.
Click to expand...
Larry, 2006.

Boy, we sure name them good, don't we?
 
Vixen said:
So different from a hurricane, in that it spirals.




Sorted.
Click to expand...


Not yet.

They all spiral.

Hurricanes, Typhoons ,and Cyclones are all exactly the same weather event. They just apply to different places. The term "cyclone" is also a generic term for that type of storm from the POV of a meteorologist.

In other words, a hurricane is a "cyclone". A typhoon is also a "cyclone". And unsurprisingly, a cyclone is a "cyclone" too.

That the three different names are used for three different parts of the world is just an artifact of adopted custom.
 
quadraginta said:
Not yet.

They all spiral.

Hurricanes, Typhoons ,and Cyclones are all exactly the same weather event. They just apply to different places. The term "cyclone" is also a generic term for that type of storm from the POV of a meteorologist.

In other words, a hurricane is a "cyclone". A typhoon is also a "cyclone". And unsurprisingly, a cyclone is a "cyclone" too.

That the three different names are used for three different parts of the world is just an artifact of adopted custom.
Click to expand...
To be clear, they're not named differently according to where they originate. They are named differently in different countries. The same storm system that will be named a tropical cyclone in Australia will be named a typhoon in Asia.

Cyclone Debbie is what we in Australia are calling it. It's the most important name because it's hitting us, and not another country. If it were hitting another country, I would care about what that country named it, but we in Australia might still refer to it as a cyclone, because that's what we call them.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom