Super cyclone hits northeastern Australia

[tocqueville]

56 minutes ago

BRISBANE, Australia (AFP) - A super cyclone smashed into tropical northeastern Australia, with winds of up to 290 kilometers an hour (180 mph) ripping up trees and toppling power lines.

Tropical Cyclone Larry was upgraded to the top category five shortly before it hit land near Innisfail in the far north of Queensland state, the Queensland weather bureau said.

It is the strongest cyclone to strike Australia in more than 30 years and was seen as potentially more dangerous than Cyclone Tracy, which devastated the northern city of Darwin in 1974.

"This cyclone is a category five now and compared to Tracy, which was also a category five ... the heart of Tracy was 47 kilometers (28 miles), this is 100 kilometers and the front itself is 300 to 400," Queensland Premier Peter Beattie said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060319/wl_asia_afp/australiaweather_060319213744

[Horse with no Name]

1. Global warming is junk science

:sarcasm:

[SpiralHawk]

2. People who used Anal Cysts as an excuse to avoid military service

-- or who got Five Deferments, or who went AWOL from their national guard unit -- unanimously agree that this is junk science.

Everyone else knows the Ugly Truth: Rush Limbaugh and fellow propagandists are spouting a PACK OF FOMA

[Horse with no Name]

8. Ain't that the truth?

I fear Mother Nature more than I fear any terrorist.
She can do more harm than 25 OBL's.
And we see how well our government responds to the destruction.
I fear that this will be the year we lose the rest of the Gulf Coast to nature.
I really do.

[Raksha]

21. You're right.

It's an absolutely terrifying thought, and it's very possible.

[alfredo]

3. We will be seeing some like that up here some time soon.

[niyad]

4. 73 days to start of hurricane season 2006

[ClintonTyree]

6. I so fear for the Gulf Coast.........

they can't take anymore down there, they really can't. But it's coming. As sure as bush is a lying, thieving coward, it's coming.

Want to bet that Australia's response in helping the people in the area is MUCH better that ours?

[file83]

25. Yeah, I can't wait to see how bad FEMA will fuck up this year, again.

[marions ghost]

5. that area of Queensland

is not thickly populated but a lot of farms will be devastated. Innisfail is not far from Cairns and The Great Barrier Reef. The coast there is magical. A storm like that will mess up a lot of the tropical rain forest also. I wonder if it will have an effect on the Reef itself.

:cry: Bad

:grouphug: to Australians in the vicinity. My bro-in-law's brother lives there. I will try to get a report from on the ground in the aftermath.

[marions ghost]

9. Area from Cairns south along the coast will be a total mess

My Bro-in-law talked to his brother awhile ago as the storm was beginning to get bad by cell phone. He said that large gum trees were coming down in the yard at the house in Cairns where they had gone for higher ground. Then the phone went out and he hasn't heard anything from them since...

[mandyky]

7. Why isn't this in LBN??

Good Lord, global warming/ Day After Tommorow has arrived!

[bananas]

30. It was posted in LBN early this morning

probably scrolled off before you saw it.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2176059

[sakabatou]

10. That is one huge hurricane

[Boomer]

11. News from Australia

From the Sydney Morning Herald:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/homes-destroyed-as-larry-hits/2006/03/20/1142703246021.html

Homes 'destroyed' as Larry hits
March 20, 2006 - 10:08AM

Larry is tearing homes apart as it crosses the far north Queensland coast, with police unable to leave their station to answer desperate calls for help.

The most destructive part of the huge storm has made landfall near the town of Innisfail, south of Cairns, unroofing homes with wind gusts reaching 290kph.

Larry's winds were at least as strong as those Cyclone Tracy unleashed in Darwin in 1974, in a storm that killed 71 people and destroyed more than 70 per cent of the city's buildings, leaving over 20,000 people homeless.

(snip)

A commercial fisherman described the force of the winds as "mind blowing".

"We've had a tree gone through the back of the house and the windows at the back are probably about to explode because the pressure on them is so great," Martin Cunningham told ABC radio.

[Boomer]

16. burp...

[intheflow]

12. K & R'd. This is the same size as Hurricane Katrina.

If you follow the link and look at the satellite photo, it sure looks a lot like a hurricane. This is going to be very bad indeed.

:cry:

[Boomer]

14. Cyclone = Hurricane

Just an FYI, cyclone is the name for hurricanes outside the Atlantic basin.

[intheflow]

19. Thanks for claifying.

I suspected as much, and now it's spelled out for others who may not know. :hug:

[Boomer]

20. Dunno know why, but...

... the word "cyclone" always sounds much more alarming to me than "hurricane." Something about the word brings up sharper images of chaos and destruction.

[file83]

29. When I lived in Japan, they called them Typhoons. Same?

[hatrack]

31. Same thing - they're all "cyclonic storms"

I.e., they all cycle/rotate. So, a typhoon is a hurricane is a cyclone (the last word sometimes misapplied to tornadoes in the United States).

[tocqueville]

13. now on CNN (web)

Massive cyclone hits Australia

Sunday, March 19, 2006 Posted: 2330 GMT (0730 HKT)

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- A powerful tropical cyclone packing winds of up to 290 kilometers per hour (180 mph) has slammed into Australia's northeastern coast Monday after more than 1,000 tourists and local residents were evacuated to higher ground, the weather bureau said.

Tropical cyclone Larry smashed into the coastal community of Innisfail, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) south of Cairns, a popular jumping-off point for the Great Barrier Reef, forecaster Jonty Hall said.

Police say three people have been reported injured so far in the cyclone.

The weather bureau on Monday upgraded the storm to a category five -- the strongest category possible -- and thousands of local residents were evacuated ahead of the cyclone's arrival.

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/03/19/cyclone.larry.ap/index.html

[thinkingwoman]

15. I hope the Australian Government

sends help to their people on day 1...and then keeps sending it.

[file83]

27. I wonder what the Austrailian version of "FEMA" is? Hope they treat their

people better than FEMA treated ours.

[LynneSin]

17. Look at that thing!

When those eyes are well-defined, that's a dangerous hurricane/cyclone

[Boomer]

18. Round Two lining up behind Larry

Related article from the Sydney Morning Herald:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/second-cyclone-not-...

Second cyclone 'not yet a threat'
March 20, 2006 - 9:54AM

A second cyclone has formed behind Tropical Cyclone Larry but is not yet posing a threat to the far north Queensland coast.

The Queensland Bureau of Meteorology says Tropical Cyclone Wati is near Vanuatu and moving west, south-west at about 13 knots.

It is currently located about 2000km east of Townsville.

It is intensifying and moving in the same direction at Cyclone Larry which is currently battering the state's far north coast.

(snip)

[uppityperson]

22. thought it looked like a second one following it.

yikes

[Kailassa]

23. It's not global warming, it's just "super-sizing" for all.

And bigger is better, isn't it?

[malaise]

24. One in three roofs gone

http://media.fairfax.com.au/?rid=18388

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/one-in-three-roofs-gone/2006/03/20/1142703252564.html

http://blogs.smh.com.au/newsblog/archives/your_say/004053.html

One in three houses have lost their roofs and several people have been hurt in the coastal town where Tropical Cyclone Larry made landfall.

A third of houses in the small town of Innisfail, about 100km south of Cairns, suffered major damage when the category five storm hit about 4am, said Queensland Counter Disaster and Rescue Services (CDRS) executive director Frank Pagano.

[file83]

26. "Larry destroys cyclone-proof shed"

From the AAP:

A FAR north Queensland resident has told of her shock at seeing her supposedly cyclone-proof shed destroyed by Cyclone Larry.

Kylie Burt, who lives on the Atherton Tablelands, says she watched from her house as the cyclone tore through her property after crossing the coast near Innisfail earlier today.
"We've got a 60-foot (18m shed which is a cyclone-proof, rating five, and we've lost the lot," she told the Seven network.

"The wind got under it, I gather, and it just lifted the roof off and now it's in my cattle paddock."

Ms Burt said she did not know if her cattle had survived the cyclone, as it was still too dangerous to leave the shelter of her home.

"(There are) trees down everywhere, there is debris flying through the air everywhere, it's just too dangerous to be outside," she said.

Sounds like those people either got suckered by the shed salesman, or this storm is really fucking strong.

[malaise]

28. Cat five is serious business

forget the salesman when it reaches Cat 5. All bets are off.

[northzax]

32. why is it hard to take a storm named 'Larry" seriously?

I mean, it's Larry, that's a harmless name.

[Odin2005]

33. 180mph? Holy fuck!

I read in The Weather Makers, a god primer primer on GW, that water temperatures in the tropical pacific has been increasing at a disturbing rate, happening mostly as a reslt of two massive climate shifts, one in 1976, and the other during the '97 El Nino.

[lastliberalintexas]

34. Good lord! Katrina and Rita's winds were only around 130-140mph

Those poor people- and another one right behind it. :(

[pitohui]

35. you are wrong on katrina's winds

at my house they were 160 miles per hour and i'm nowhere near landfall

katrina was a cat 5 in open water, cat 4 at landfall, cat 3 here -- but cat 3 refers to sustained winds there were still uncounted "spin up tornadoes" at much higher winds

hell, there were cat 2 winds all the way up to jackson

[tgnyc]

36. No blacks in northeastern Australia for Bush to watch drown