Australia's Cyclone Larry Much Stronger Than Katrina (Bloomberg)

Australia's Cyclone Larry Much Stronger Than Katrina (Update1)


March 21 (Bloomberg) -- Cyclone Larry, the strongest storm to hit Australia in 30 years, smashed into the Queensland coast today with about 40 percent more force than Hurricane Katrina at landfall.

The highest recorded winds for Cyclone Larry, a category 5 storm, were about 180 miles per hour (290 kilometers per hour), compared with 125 mile per hour winds for the Category 3 Katrina when it struck land, said James Vasilj, a spokesman with the National Weather Service in New Orleans.

``If a Category 5 hurricane like Larry hit any populated area of the United States, the damage would be absolutely catastrophic,'' said Frank Lepore, spokesman for the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

``You're talking major wall failure on high-rise buildings. A Category 5 hurricane could lift a 2000-pound car and deposit it on a 4-foot-high wall,'' Lepore said in an interview. ``A 150-160 pound person wouldn't stand a chance.''


snip


http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000080&sid=ahZ0Rv53bZhQ&refer=asia

That's not a hurricane, that's a tornado.

Homes wrecked and reef damaged as cyclone lashes Australia

By Meraiah Foley and Mike Corder, AP
Published: 20 March 2006


A horrific cyclone ripped roofs off buildings across Australia's northeastern coast Monday, with winds up to 180 mph that kept emergency workers holed up inside despite pleas for help from terrified residents.

The storm also damaged part of the Great Barrier Reef, with experts saying it could be 20 years before it recovers.

Hundreds of tourists and thousands of residents were bunkered down inside resort hotels and homes as Tropical Cyclone Larry — one of Australia's strongest in decades — smashed into the coast about 60 miles south of Cairns.

There were no serious injuries among the dozen people initially reported hurt, reflecting the readiness of residents in the storm-prone region, local officials said.

The cyclone damaged more than half the buildings in the hardest-hit town of Innisfail, Queensland state leader Peter Beattie said.

"Some have been flattened, roofs have been taken off," Beattie told Macquarie Radio. "The property damage has been immense. Power lines are down and it will take days to replace them because of the damage," he added. "We haven't had a cyclone like this for decades, if we've ever had one like it before."


snip


http://news.independent.co.uk/world/australasia/article352416.ece

It hurt farm country......banana crop got hit bad. They took heed from katrina and all got away in time??

Cooney is not a scientist. "He's a lawyer. He was a lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute, before going into the White House," :puke:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/17/60minutes/main1415985.shtml

Is this (a peek in) the future?? (the present?!?)

Who will reduce GHE emissions?

And on top of that, that part of the coast is nearly unpopulated! They evacuated about 1000 people.
What the hell is that BS News Day?!?! :mad: :argh:

They must really think we are all equally stupid. And Why the hell are they reporting this from NEW YORK, NY and San Francisco, California!?!?

Luckily the "reporters" provided their e-mail addresses:

To contact the reporter on this story:
Greg Bensinger in New York at gbensinger1@bloomberg.net

Ryan Flinn in San Francisco at rflinn@bloomberg.net

Here are some REAL links:



<http://tsr.mssl.ucl.ac.uk/tracker/dynamic/200617P.html>

<http://weather.unisys.com/hurricane/s_pacific/2006/index.html>


Cyclone LARRY (18-20 MAR)
Storm - Max Winds: 100 Category: 3
Current - Max Winds: 75 Category: 1

WARNING POSITION:
200600Z --- NEAR 18.0S 144.0E
MOVEMENT PAST SIX HOURS - 255 DEGREES AT 14 KTS
POSITION ACCURATE TO WITHIN 040 NM
POSITION BASED ON CENTER LOCATED BY SATELLITE
PRESENT WIND DISTRIBUTION:
MAX SUSTAINED WINDS - 075 KT, GUSTS 090 KT
DISSIPATING AS A SIGNIFICANT TROPICAL CYCLONE OVER LAND
REPEAT POSIT: 18.0S 144.0E



<http://weather.unisys.com/hurricane/s_pacific/2006/LARRY/track.dat>

Date: 18-20 MAR 2006
Cyclone LARRY
ADV LAT LON TIME WIND PR STAT
1 -16.90 156.90 03/18/00Z 35 - TROPICAL STORM
2 -17.20 155.60 03/18/06Z 45 - TROPICAL STORM
3 -17.30 154.40 03/18/12Z 50 - TROPICAL STORM
4 -17.60 152.90 03/18/18Z 60 - TROPICAL STORM
5 -17.80 151.10 03/19/00Z 65 - CYCLONE-1
6 -17.80 149.80 03/19/06Z 75 - CYCLONE-1
7 -17.70 148.20 03/19/12Z 90 - CYCLONE-2
8 -17.60 146.90 03/19/18Z 100 - CYCLONE-3
9 -17.70 145.40 03/20/00Z 100 - CYCLONE-3
10 -18.00 144.00 03/20/06Z 75 - CYCLONE-1
+12 -18.50 141.70 03/20/18Z 40 - TROPICAL STORM

Sydney Morning Herald, March 20
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/inland-towns-brace-for-impact/2006/03/20/1142703257234.html


http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2006/03/20/cyclonelarry_wideweb__470x362,0.jpg

Before it made landfall it had a well-formed round eye.

I was about to visit relatives there for a wedding, but it's been called off. They no longer have a house.

...which is full of errors.

Sorry to hear about your canceled trip.

Still checking other weather services, I was tracking this storm earlier in the day and I've never known both of the Hurricane Tracking sites, that I linked to above, being so different from what the Australian Weather service is reporting.

This is very odd, This is all I've found so far, which seems to back up what you posted, more links and the next storm info below:



?1142869624240

<http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDQ65002.shtml>

<http://www.bom.gov.au/weather/qld/cyclone/>

Plus, the sites I use are under reporting the next Tropical Cyclone too, according to the Australian Weather service, here's that report: <http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDQ65004.shtml>

Name: Wati
Severity Category: 2
Situation At: 4PM EST Tuesday 21 March 2006
Location: 17.8S 154.9E
Recent Movement: WSW at 12 km/h
Remarks: Tropical Cyclone advices are not required at this time.

Wati is expected to maintain a west-southwest track until Wednesday morning when it will slow down and remain in offshore waters for the rest of the week. This may produce gale force winds off the coast between Bowen and Fraser Island. Large seas will develop along the southern coast during the week.

The next track map will be issued by 11PM EST Tuesday.

And yes, the different reports are puzzling. I guess the one you first cited was giving readings from predetermined times of the day rather than when the storm reached its maximum intensity.

I had been looking at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology for the cat5 warning I had read when it was hitting, but they don't seem to store old warnings on the site.

But the important aspect is that it was one more huge storm of the sort that global warming is making more and more common in our world.

...report on Weather Underground which explains the problem, they use a different scale that is based on wind gusts, not the one we use here.

I posted the report and link below. <http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=323&tstamp=200603>

Tell you family to keep watching that next one (Wati), it's supposed to make a sharp turn to the south, but you never can tell, it could do a 360 degree turn before heading for the coast.

Here are some links to watch: <http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDQ65004.shtml>

<http://tsr.mssl.ucl.ac.uk/tracker/dynamic/200618P.html>

Cyclone Larry Devastates Australian Towns, Crops; Second Storm Approaches
Stephanie Peatling in Sydney
for National Geographic News




A satellite view shows Cyclone Larry as it crossed the coast of northern Queensland, Australia, on March 19 at 12:33 p.m. Coordinated Universal Time.

Larry made landfall as a Category Five storm with winds of up to 180 miles an hour (290 kilometers an hour), tearing the roofs off buildings and leaving about 120,000 people without power.

Image courtesy Australian Bureau of Meteorology/Processed from data received from the geostationary meteorological satellite MTSAT-1R operated by the Japan Meteorological Agency


March 21, 2006
Northern Queensland, Australia (see map), which was battered by Cyclone Larry on Monday morning, is bracing for more wild weather later in the week.

A second tropical cyclone, Wati, has reached Category Two status and is slowly approaching the continent's northeastern coast.

Tropical cyclones, which are known as hurricanes when they form in the North Atlantic Ocean basin, are often ranked in intensity according to the Saffir-Simpson scale. (Read "'Category Five': How a Hurricane Yardstick Came to Be.")

Larry crossed the coast on Monday as a Category Five storm—the strongest on the intensity scale—with winds of up to 180 miles an hour (290 kilometers an hour). The tempest tore the roofs off buildings and left about 120,000 people without power.

About 30 people have been treated for minor injuries and a hundred are being housed in emergency accommodations.

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology's Tropical Cyclone Warning Center has now downgraded Larry from a cyclone to a severe low-pressure system.


snip


http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/03/0321_060321_cyclone_larry.html

Larry hit as a Cat. 3, "as measured on the Saffer-Simpson Scale, which rate a hurricane by sustained winds." Larry was a Cat 5 on The Australian Cyclone Severity Scale, which rates Hurricanes by the speed of wind gusts, not sustained winds.

I posted several links below, with my follow up posts, were another member and I figured out this odd discrepancy.

Other than that, I fully stand by my previous comments, This Bloomberg article to total crap and the so-called writers should be sent back to school take or repeat a Journalism course. As you may have noticed by the link in my sig line, deceptive and crap journalism is one of my major concerns.

because that's how they're reporting it.

What do I know from weather numbers?

I didn't write it.

I just posted it.

Good luck in your information correction efforts.


Web Results 1 - 10 of about 587,000 for "cyclone larry". (0.06 seconds)

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News results for "cyclone larry" - View today's top stories
Cyclone Larry Devastates Australian Towns, Crops; Second Storm ... - National Geographic - 3 hours ago
Cyclone Larry's cost bears down on prices - Melbourne Herald Sun - 7 hours ago
Pain begins for cyclone Larry's victims - The Age - 8 hours ago





FOXNews.com - US & World News - Cyclone Larry Lashes Australian CoastFOXNews.com - US and World News - Cyclone Larry Lashes Australian Coast. A powerful storm packing 180-mph winds tears across Australia's northeastern coast.
www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,188387,00.html - 25k - Mar 20, 2006 - Cached - Similar pages


Tropical Cyclone Threat Map Page (1)Remarks:, The VERY DESTRUCTIVE CORE of SEVERE TROPICAL CYCLONE LARRY with ... Severe Tropical Cyclone Larry will move further inland during the day, with ...
www.bom.gov.au/products/IDQ65002.shtml - 11k - Mar 19, 2006 - Cached - Similar pages


CNN.com - Massive cyclone hits Australia - Mar 19, 2006Tropical cyclone Larry is seen striking the coast of Australia in this satellite ... Tropical cyclone Larry smashed into the coastal community of Innisfail, ...
www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/03/19/cyclone.larry.ap/ - 47k - Mar 19, 2006 - Cached - Similar pages


CNN.com - Breaking News, US, World, Weather, Entertainment & Video ...Tropical Cyclone Larry slammed into the northeastern coast of Australia with gusts up to 185 mph (300 kph), authorities in the Australian state of ...
www.cnn.com/ - 66k - Mar 19, 2006 - Cached - Similar pages


Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Queensland flees Cyclone LarryQueensland flees Cyclone Larry Mike Corder in Sydney Monday March 20, 2006 The Guardian. Residents along parts of Australia's northeast coast were ordered ...
www.guardian.co.uk/australia/story/0,,1734820,00.html - 36k - Mar 20, 2006 - Cached - Similar pages


TROPICAL CYCLONE LARRYIndependent weather specializes in hurricane, tropical cyclone, and typhoon tracking. USA severe weather, climate, and El Nino monitoring also included.
independentwx.com/ - 46k - Mar 19, 2006 - Cached - Similar pages


Damage widespread as cyclone moves inland. 20/03/2006. ABC News OnlineThere is widespread damage across far north Queensland as cyclone Larry moves inland after crossing the coast this morning Gale force winds have uprooted ...
www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200603/s1595732.htm - 37k - Mar 19, 2006 - Cached - Similar pages


Cyclone Larry 'as bad as Tracy'. 20/03/2006. ABC News OnlineThe Mayor of Johnstone Shire in far north Queensland Neil Clarke says cyclone Larry is as bad as any cyclone in living memory Category 5 cyclone Larry ...
www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200603/s1595672.htm - 34k - Mar 19, 2006 - Cached - Similar pages
< More results from www.abc.net.au >


Aussies Endure Strongest Storm Since '74 - Yahoo! NewsCyclone Larry crashed ashore south of Cairns as a Category 5 storm. Cairns is a popular jumping-off point for tourists to the Great Barrier Reef, ...
news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060320/ ap_on_re_au_an/australia_cyclone - 38k - Mar 20, 2006 - Cached - Similar pages


News from Australia and around the world online | NEWS.com.auNORTH Queensland is reeling tonight after Cyclone Larry tore across the coast, ... Related story Visit: Howard to see Cyclone Larry's devastation ...
www.news.com.au/ - Similar pages


http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&tab=wn&ie=UTF-8&q=%22cyclone+larry%22&btnmeta%3Dsearch%3Dsearch=Search+the+Web

...problem, that just keeps getting worse. The internet can be a blessing, but lately it's a curse.

This one looks like sloppy reporting by reporters looking to be the first to get the "scoop" by quickly reading, but not fully understanding what they read in the Australian press. Annoying, but not as bad as what usually happens these days.

What is happening a LOT these days is, a good report, written by the NY Times or Washington Post reporters, is picked up and edited by AP or News Corp, who usually end up editing out needed info, which distorts the report. When you see an AP report without a "by-line," that's usually an edited report.

Worse is when the UPI gets a report (or the same edited report). UPI usually crops up left leaning reports and totally distort what was originally written. Those usually get picked up by all the bogus RW "news" sites, and when the original report is eventually purged from the web, these distorted reports are all that remain.

I've written about this in the past. I haven't done it yet, but I plan to collect some of my past posts on this subject to my DU Journal soon.

i appreciate your efforts

i tried to respond to a post yesterday that claimed the winds were higher for larry than katrina but gave up after i realized i didn't know what they were smokin

now i know, they had help from idiot reporters who don't know ass from elbow

larry was bad but jeebus to compare this to katrina is ridiculous

I'm IN Australia and have been hearing since it hit that when it touched land it was a CAT.

Sheesh!

Looks like your post fell off at the end of you insult.

No need to get nasty, if you read down thread, you'll see that we figured the discrepancy, we use the Saffir-Simpson scale, but Australia has a different scale, the Tropical Cyclone Severity scale, which takes wind gusts into account, the Saffir-Simpson scale does not.

Here's the link: <http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2179139&mesg_id=2179274>

As pointed out by another member below <http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2179139&mesg_id=2179236>

"...Maximum sustained winds of 180 MPH would have made that photo show nothing but empty foundations. Houses of that sort do NOT survive 180 MPH sustained winds. At all."

They have this annoying habit of measuring everything differently than we do ;)

The folk in this thread pointing out that a Category 5 cyclone (using their measurements) wouldn't have left much at all standing. I'm not sure what Cyclone Tracy was using their system, but the winds got up to around 220 kilometres per hour before whatever measuring equipment they used back in 1975 broke...

You've probably seen pics of Darwin after Tracy before, but the person who pointed out that the houses in Innisfall wouldn't have been left standing if it was a similar strength to Katrina was right, coz this is what Darwin looked like...



That's not to say that Larry wasn't one hell of a cyclone, but the US media trying to make it as big as Katrina is wrong...

Violet...

compared to New Orleans.

But, of course, the damage done here does not compare with what happened in New Orleans. Here we had towns exposed to a cyclone after everyone in danger was evacuated.

In NO you had a city and suburbs flooded for weeks.

Let's break it down, shall we...

March 21 (Bloomberg) -- Cyclone Larry, the strongest storm to hit Australia in 30 years...,

WRONG! This isn't even the strongest storm to hit Australia in the last 10 Years! Tropical Cyclone Vance hit near Onslow in West Australia 22 March 1999 (Cyclone #30) as a Cat. 4, or is West Australia not Australia? <http://www.bom.gov.au/weather/wa/cyclone/about/onslow/index.shtml>

<http://weather.unisys.com/hurricane/s_indian/1999/index.html> They did a "Storm Story" on this Vance on The Weather Channel!


...The highest recorded winds for Cyclone Larry, a category 5 storm, were about 180 miles per hour (290 kilometers per hour)...,

WRONG! Tropical Cyclone Larry's winds never got past Cat. 3 (111-130mph)winds with 115MPH winds

...compared with 125 mile per hour winds for the Category 3 Katrina when it struck land..., WRONG! Katrina was a Cat.4 with 125 Knots Per Hour winds (that's approx 144MPH winds) when it hit Southern Louisiana.

I could go on, but just one more: "...Category 5 storms must have winds of at least 155 miles per hour. The storms are known as typhoons in the Pacific Ocean and hurricanes in the Atlantic." WRONG! They are referred to as Tropical Cyclones in the South Pacific and Southern Indian Ocean, Typhoon is what they call them in the North Western Pacific (Japan, China, etc.)

God, what a bunch of Dopes! :eyes:

They must have seen what a bang-up job he did on the Gulf Coast!

http://www.couriermail.news.com.au/story/0,20797,18550454-5003402,00.html

It's true that a wind gust of 180 was reported, but cyclones/hurricanes are not rated based upon max gusts. It's sustained winds that matter and by that standard Larry never got higher than a strong Category 3 storm. Frankly given the data available I'd have to consider that 180 gust reading a tad suspect.

My guess is some overly dramatic reporter with limited knowlege of meteorology got his facts wrong and a few papers ran the wire copy without checking.

Nonetheless, a devastating storm.





On edit, that top pic is from a place called Innisfail, near ground zero for Larry. Maximum sustained winds of 180 MPH would have made that photo show nothing but empty foundations. Houses of that sort do NOT survive 180 MPH sustained winds. At all.

...explaines the confusing numbers, they use a different scale based on wind gusts:

It's good to know how to compare things.

I bet Australia switches to the Safir-Simpson scale just when America finds it doesn't meet its needs, with storms intensifying, and switches to a new one. ;-)

Saffir-Simpson scale. Don't they use the Australian Cyclone Severity Scale?

...on this thread, it's still an awful storm.

Hekate

most of the palms were just flattened.
But the damage will be cleaned up fast, worse things happen at sea, as they say. ;-)
No-one seems to have been seriously hurt, and the towns will rebuild.

It got at least 4 seconds on the nightly news last night. (sarcasm)

in comparing storms and levees. The world paid attention. Too bad and very sad that our elected officials, for the most part, are so out of the loop and/or more about their asses than about the citizens of our nation.

katrina was a cat 4 at landfall, larry a cat 3 at landfall by our scale

why must they make a contest out of this?

here is a neighborhood in plaquemines parish where katrina made landfall:



it's terrible what happened to innisfail, australia but as another poster said if they'd had katrina there, the damage would be far, far worse

It was just American news quoting American weather service spokesmen who didn't know what they were talking about.

As Up2Late explains in post 16, we use a different measuring sytem in Australia.
Our cat5 cyclone no more equals your cat5 hurricane than our kilometre equals your mile.

We had media coverage for weeks here over Hurricane Katrina, and Australians were horrified by what happened and at the tragic follow-up. Even the victims of this cyclone would not compare the two.

i know the fault is on this end and should have made this more clear in my post

years ago i had a subscription to bloomberg, like him or hate him, the reality is that like ALL financially targeted news media in the usa, there is a horrible free market bias and as the old free market theory is pretty much 18th c. voodoo they all just pretty much make it up and don't bother to get it right on science-based issues

wall street journal even worse