Cyclone Ingrid

[SoCal Steve]

Any of you folks affected by cyclone Ingrid or in a position for photos?

I know it's a big country and rather unlikely, but I thought I'd ask anyway.

[jethro]

steve if your on broadband try these links

http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/

and this

http://mirror.bom.gov.au/products/IDR183.shtml

http://www.bom.gov.au/gms/IDE00005.latest.shtml

good luck

[stubbsy]

Any of you folks affected by cyclone Ingrid or in a position for photos?

I know it's a big country and rather unlikely, but I thought I'd ask anyway.

Steve, you're right Australia is big (enough so that the entire continental US would fit inside our borders). Most of our members are in nice safe areas well away from where this will hit, but we'll eventually get the trailing rain and stuff. Generally we don't get cyclone damage like parts of the US (eg Florida) do because of our lower population density and better geographical location. This one has got big coverage here since it's the first really big one in many years and has the potential to cause big damage if it hits a population centre. At present it seems unlikely to cause major loss of property or life (Cape York where it's predicted to cross the coast is fairly sparsely populated).

A good news site for aussie info on this is at http://www.abc.net.au - the most recent story being this one BTW I'm impressed you even knew about Ingrid. I thought the US had very little coverage of the "less significant" world events.

[birddog114]

All gone by this afternoon, just rain up North of QLD.
We have had beautiful day today.

[Killakoala]

I spent about three months doing survey work off the coast of where the cyclone is and i can tell you that there is bugger-all for the cyclone to hit

[MattC]

May be bugger all to hit up there, but whatever gets hit by a Category 5 is going to be blown away. That one is 2000km+ off course - it belongs up in "Typhoon Alley". Fortunately it has lost some of its energy to become "only" a Category 3. I think "Tracy" was a 2 and that infamous storm that hit the Sydney to Hobart fleet only had half the wind speeds of this monster.

Cheers

Matt

[stormygirl]

Hi Guys!

Ingrid has now been downgraded to a cat 1, but as she crosses west into the warmer waters of the Gulf of Carpentaria, she will most likely intensify.

They are such unpredictable beasts! If she had stayed on course and headed for Cairns as a cat 5 it would have been totally disasterous! Doesn't really bear thinking about

[Killakoala]

Matt, Tracy was a Cat 4 cyclone.

When i was living in Darwin waaaay back in 2000 we had a major scare from a Cat 5 cyclone that brewed up in exactly the same area of the Timor Sea as Tracy and then ventured down the EXACT path that Tracy followed, but fortunately decided to make a wrong turn and headed to Western Australia instead but it did peter-out before hitting the coast near Derby.

But the winds from that storm were about 150kph in Darwin which was about 200 klms from the eye of the storm. The eye had predicted winds in excess of 300kph. The Tiwi island community had winds of over 200kph. No one was hurt although there was quite a lot of damage.

That was one of many cyclones i've been near or through over the years i was living 'up north'.

[birddog114]

I heard two days ago, The Singapore AF evacuated their two choppers from Townsville to Brisbane (Amberley), same as number of the Heli from Royal Australian Army.

[MattC]

Steve

Aha, I had only heard the 150-160 km/hr windspeeds being bandied around.

Cheers

Matt

[Link]

Anybody interested in taking photos at the heart of the typhoon?!?

Remind me of a National Geographic photographer who tried that with a tornado in the States: he dropped a camera on the path of a tornado and fled (minute before the storm hit). The camera was carefully packed into a box made of strong and heavy materials with an automated system to trigger the shutter. Still, the camera fired only a few shots before going belly up!

The final frame was published in National Geographic last year, alongside many other photos he took following storm chasers (one his photo made it to the Wolrd Press Photo 2005!)

Link.