Tropical Cyclone Activity Heats up near Australia

Above: Tropical Cyclone Bianca off Western Australia. A weakened Bianca is forecast to strike somewhere near Perth on Saturday evening.



Above: Tropical Cyclone Wilma off Fiji from NASA's AQUA satellite. Lat -24.0, Long +177.0 (See NASA's MODIS Rapid Response System for more images). Fiji is at the top of the image.

The year's first Category 4 tropical cyclone is Tropical Cyclone Wilma, which is churning the waters near Tonga in the Southern Hemisphere with sustained winds of 135 mph (minimum Category 4 strength.) Wilma passed over American Samoa as a strong tropical storm, and hit Tonga as a Category 3 storm. Substantial damage has been reported on Tonga, but no deaths or injuries. Wilma is recurving out to sea, and will not affect Australia.

Australia is keeping an eye on Tropical Cylone Bianca, which is expected to skirt the northwest coast of the country over the next few days.



Above: ECMWF Model forecast for Friday 4 February 2011. Note the green and yellow circle top right -- a storm -- forecast to strike flood-ravaged Queensland. If this forecast proves accurate it could be devastating. The European Center (ECMWF) predicts a first smaller cyclone to strike the same general area on Monday 31 January 2011.

Of much greater concern for Australia are two potential tropical cyclones that could hit the flood-ravaged state of Queensland next week (see graphic above). Both the European Center and GFS models predict that the remains of Tropical Cyclone Anthony are regenerating into a tropical cyclone about 695 NM east of Cairns (or at about 18.4 S, 157.8 E) and early next week the reformed storm could hit Queensland.

A second and potentially more powerful storm is forecast to form next week in the islands to the east of Australia, and threaten Queensland at the end of the week. This is potentially terrible news for Australia, which is attempting to recover from record floods.

The latest Australian Bureau of Meteorology climate statement and flood summary reports that the past four months (September - December) have already been the rainiest such period in Queensland's history, and the resulting flooding disaster has been Australia's most expensive natural disaster in history.

Below: Tropical Cyclone Bianca off Western Australia from NASA's TERRA satellite. Lat -17.0, Long. +120.2 (See NASA's MODIS Rapid Response System for more images). Indonesia is at the top left of image with Jakarta being far left. The smaller island top right of image is East Timor.



A recent newspaper report from Brisbane has people sleeping in cars due to the devastating impact of the flood crisis of the past weeks.

Below: A map of Australia from WorldAtlas.com