Tropical Cyclone Yasi and other category four cyclones of Australia
Cyclone Yasi
Up to 300000 people are at risk from super Cyclone Yasi that is expected to hit the North Queensland Coast late Wednesday night. It is expected to bring damaging wind gust of up to 300km/h and a storm surge of over 7 metres is expected to hit low lying coastal areas. The following transcript is taken from the Australian Bureau of Meterology's website
THE VERY DESTRUCTIVE CORE OF CYCLONE YASI WILL CROSS THE COAST NEAR INNISFAIL CLOSE TO MIDNIGHT, WITH A DANGEROUS STORM TIDE AND BATTERING WAVES SOUTH OF THE CYCLONE CENTRE.
Tropical Cyclone Yasi, CATEGORY 5, will continue to move in a west-southwesterly direction and is expected to cross the coast near Innisfail close to midnight.
www.bom.gov.au for more information and weather maps
Category four Cyclones
Cyclone Tracy
Darwin, Christmas Eve 1974
Tracy stand as Australia's most destructive cyclone with winds of around 250km/h. Seventy one people were killed and many thousands injured.
Innisfail, March 20, 2006
Although no live were lost in this cyclone the damage bill was put at AUD$1.5 billion. Cyclone Larry crossed the North Queensland coast causing damage to over 10000 homes and destroying most of Queensland banana crop. This caused a huge spike in the price of banana's in Australia going from about $2/kilo to about $15/kilo in the southern states
Cyclone Althea
Townsville Area, 1971
Many house were damaged or destroyed during this cyclone and three people lost their lives. On Magnetic Island 90 per cent of the house were destroyed. The bill was about $50 million dollars (1971 money)
Cyclone Larry
The map below is the current cyclone track map from BOM. You can see how much the path a descruction is and how far the effects are going to be felt.
