Cyclones

[Yenn]

I see that in the news today is the fact that N Qld and Cairns in particular are going to have many more and more dangerous cyclones due to global warming.

What I don't understand is that since global warming has been a big topic, this prediction keeps popping up, but the actual figures show that N Qld is getting less cyclones and they are not more severe. In fact there is more damage being done by tropical rain depressions than by cyclones.

I am not a non believer in climate change but I do get fed up with all the spurious arguments put forward by the  professional climate change believers.

[old man emu]

What's a tropical rain depression if it's not a baby cyclone that didn't get hot enough?

[onetrack]

The frequency and strength of cyclones is totally and utterly unpredictable, and anyone who tries to tell us that CC will cause bigger cyclones and more adverse weather events, is full of BS. 

The "experts" in the BOM struggle to get accuracy into long range forecasts, with wildly varying percentages. Even their short-term forecasts can be pretty inaccurate.

 

I can recall many many years ago, the BOM in W.A. bragged about how they'd achieved a forecast accuracy rate of 48% in their daily forecasts for the year - and they were quite proud of their record.

Then someone pointed out that if the BOM had totally reversed its forecast for each day of the preceding year - i.e. - if they had initially forecast it was going to rain, then they had changed the forecast, to "sunny and no rain" - they'd have achieved an accuracy rate of 52%!!

 

We never heard the BOM ever brag again about its weather forecasting accuracy, after that comment was printed!

 

These people who tell us cyclones are going to get bigger and much more destructive, have obviously never looked at historical records. Some of W.A.'s biggest and most destructive cyclone were in the 1800's, with widespread damage and destruction.

One cyclone on March 26, 1935, destroyed 20 boats of the Broome Pearling fleet, with the loss of 140 lives. It hit the Lacepede Islands, a totally undeveloped area. If the cyclone had hit a developed area, such as we have today, the destruction would have been in the multiple billions.

 

https://knowledge.aidr.org.au/resources/cyclone-broome-lacepede-island-western-australia-1935/#:~:text=Cyclone - Broome%2C Lacepede Islands&text=The Cyclone%2C which blew in,vessels were torn from moorings.

 

Another sudden cyclone hit the Pearling fleet at the 90 Mile beach (North of Broome - and now called 80 Mile beach, possibly to avoid confusion with Victoria's 90 Mile beach) with little warning on April 21st 1897.

This sudden cyclone destroyed over 40 Pearling luggers and around 300 lives were lost. As the lives lost were mostly Japanese and Aboriginal divers, little true record exists of human losses, only the lugger losses were recorded.

 

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/32704654?searchTerm=pearling fleet damaged

 

On Jan 6, 1897, a monstrous cyclone hit Darwin, and caused a vast amount of damage. It is widely believed that this 1897 cyclone was as bad, if not worse, than Cyclone Tracy.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1897_Darwin_cyclone

 

Cylone Mahina in 1899 is regarded as the most intense recorded cyclone to ever hit Australia. Imagine how many cyclones in the early days were never fully or properly recorded?

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone_Mahina

 

The 1912 Balla Balla cyclone sank the Koombana, a nearly-new 4000 ton ship sailing to Wyndham, and the cyclone also either wrecked or badly damaged a number of other ships in the region. The damage from the Balla Balla cyclone extended over 200kms inland.

 

https://knowledge.aidr.org.au/resources/cyclone-balla-balla-western-australia-1912/

 

https://www.loveexploring.com/gallerylist/92230/the-worst-weather-disasters-in-australia

 

IMO, the number and strength of cyclones hitting W.A. has actually decreased somewhat in the last 20 years. Extremes in weather events have always been a part of Australia's climate history.

[rgmwa]

2 hours ago, onetrack said:

I can recall many many years ago, the BOM in W.A. bragged about how they'd achieved a forecast accuracy rate of 48% in their daily forecasts for the year - and they were quite proud of their record.

Then someone pointed out that if the BOM had totally reversed its forecast for each day of the preceding year - i.e. - if they had initially forecast it was going to rain, then they had changed the forecast, to "sunny and no rain" - they'd have achieved an accuracy rate of 52%!!

They would have achieved slightly more success by tossing a coin.

Edited April 28, 2022 by rgmwa

[red750]

Blaming these things on CC is like blaming Covid for all the disruption and delays to postal items, supply chains, overloaded phone switchboards, etc., etc. Covid has been around for more than two years now, enough time to get their act(s) together. Anything but  them to blame their ineptitude on.

[Jerry_Atrick]

I believe we can blame your post of climate change 😉

 

[facthunter]

The energy of Cyclones comes  from the Latent heat of water. The hotter the sea surface the more water in the tropical maritime air. Cyclones peter out over land unless it's waterlogged. Nev