Spare a thought for Queensland, Australia

Last month, I posted about the devastating Floods in Queensland, Australia.  The floods have caused 40 deaths to date and are likely to cost the nation $30 billion.

Most of the flooding has been in southern and central Queensland as shown by the map below:

Tonight, the Queensland government and Police are evacuating much of the northern coastal region as Severe Tropical Cyclone Yasi approaches the north eastern coast. 

Super Cyclone Yasi is currently a category 4 category 5 cyclone and they are forecasting winds of 230 kmh 320 kmh and higher near the centre.  To give you an idea of size, the eye of the cyclone is 100 km across, from the sattelite image below, you can see the scale of the storm.

See the latest images at https://www.bom.gov.au/gms/IDE00035.latest.shtml

Thanks to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology for the images: https://www.bom.gov.au/qld/

For more info see the News Report: Australia 'hasn't seen anything like Yasi'

For a pictorial comparison of Yasi to other cyclones, have a look at How Yasi compares to other cyclones.

Please have Queensland and its people in your thoughts over the next few days. 

David

PS: Thank-you to everyone who has asked about my situation.  For your information, I live in Perth on the west coast and while Australia as a whole has had the wettest summer ever, Perth has had the driest winter ever and is still in a state of drought.  While we would love some water, we don't want to have our drought broken the same way it was in Queensland.

02-Feb-2011: Tropical Cyclone Yasi has been upgraded to the highest level, Category 5.