[paraclete]

It isn't often that nature attacks with two large storms on the same day, this must be a first in what we can look forward to

Live: Tropical Cyclone Marcia crosses the Queensland coast - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Cyclone Lam: Category four system crosses mainland coast; Elcho Island endures wild night - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

It is fortunate that large populations aren't in the path although the Queensland city of Rockhampton is in for a wild ride.

Both of these storms pack winds of 295 km hour and rainfall of 500 mm which is almost beyond comprehension. This terror on a scale jihadists could only hope for


just a little radar shot of the storms attacking a continent.

[paraclete]

For the first time Australia is being hit by two huge storms on the same day a category 4 cyclone and a category five cyclone and the intensity is just difficult to imagine. If this were happening north of the equator there would be a full news coverage but elsewhere it doesn't rate a mention. We are waking up to the possibility of destruction on a scale we haven't seen in ten or twenty years. Fortunately one of these storms is nowhere near a large population centre but the largest will pass over a city.

We are just not set up to handle two of these at the same time and may not even be set up to handle one

[paraclete]

Well this was a nasty outcome but fortunately no lives lost 1500 homes lost or damaged, the army mobilised to assist and communities without essential services, but everything done in good order and cooperation as might be expected in a civilised society

[tomder55]

chalk it off as a 500 year event . Most likely will never happen like that again . Here in NY we are in tundraland with repeated assaults by the Siberian Express. We also happen to be in the weakest solar maximum in over a century . Coincidence ? I think not.

[paraclete]

Tom this was not a 500 year event unfortunately this general area has been hit by several large cyclones in the last century with yasi only a few years ago, it is a natural weather event in this climate a part of the southern oscillation cycle similar to your gulf hurricains

[tomder55]

Your own Bureau of Meteorology called the double hit a historic 1st for your country.

[paraclete]

Yes unprecedented to have two hit on the same day but not necessarily to have a succession of cyclones in those northern areas, it is the monsoon and the Carpentaria area is similar to your gulf. This was unusual also because of the large mass of warmer water in the Tasman sea which was feeding the system in QLD. The limits of the tropics have certainly moved lower with us experiencing tropical like conditions in lower latitudes

[tomder55]

We were told of doom and gloom scenarios ...of repeated Katrina like events .Instead we have had a period of fewer hurricanes.(Sandy was a fluke .It was not that powerful but it took an unusual path) .

[paraclete]

I think we have imperfect knowledge in these areas and are only guessing. We expected more damage from a storm of this magnitude, and it was bad, perhaps we are better prepared and don't take as many risks. But the media has gone off somewhere else, not enough interest to keep telling the stories, I expected big announcements of national emergency and aid response and it just isn't there, one disaster too many I guess, they would rather focus on some drug runners in Indonesia and Tony's foot in mouth disease

[talaniman]

I bet those people who lived in those 1500 destroyed homes are still focused on what the storm brought to them.

[tomder55]

Yes I'm sure they do just like the town of Joplin after they got wacked by an EF5 tornado. But that single event ,as tragic was it was ,did not signal a new weather pattern .

[talaniman]

If the big bad wolf blows your straw house down, would you build another straw house?

[tomder55]

lol did you see the new Sesame Street parody on House of Cards ?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92NXMtVtv8o

[talaniman]

LOL, You are an EXTRAORDINARily funny GENTLEMEN for sure Tom! :D

Until Ap5th anyway! ;)

[paraclete]

I don't get why a event should be considered a new weather pattern, however they are more frequent because of warmer oceans in a place of shallow seas. Interestingly these moved from east to west and I thought in the southern hemisphere they should move in the opposite direction so maybe it is a new weather pattern