Zeer zware cycloon voor Australië

quote:

Australia's most dangerous tropical cyclone of the season so far is Tropical Cyclone Rusty, which has intensified to Category 1 strength and is lumbering southeastwards towards the northwestern coast of Australia at 6 mph. Rusty is expected to intensify further into a powerful Category 3 storm, and is predicted to make landfall near the town of Port Hedland (population 15,000) on Tuesday near 18 UTC (1 pm EST in the U.S.) Rusty formed on Saturday evening when westerly winds blowing near the Equator combined with easterly winds blowing south of New Guinea to create an unusually large tropical storm with a huge, 100-mile diameter cloud-free center. Ordinarily, a storm this large takes a long time to wind up, but Rusty intensified quickly, taking advantage of low wind shear of 5 - 10 knots, and near-record warm ocean temperatures of 31 - 32°C (88 - 90°F). It's not often that a tropical cyclone gets 31 - 32°C waters to feed off of; these temperature are about 1.5°C (2.7°F) warmer than average for this time of year. The hot ocean temperatures are largely due to Australia's hottest month in its history--the nationally-averaged monthly maximum temperature during January 2013 was the highest ever recorded. For the waters off the northwest Australian coast (15°S - 20°S, 115°E - 120°E), only two years since ocean temperature records began in 1960 have seen February ocean temperatures this warm (1.57°C above average in 2005, and 1.62°C above average in 1983.) The warm waters also extend to great depth; the tropical cyclone heat potential (TCHP) in this region is over 90 kJ/cm**2, a value commonly associated with rapid intensification. With its slow movement, large circulation, and near-record warm waters to feed off, Rusty is going to dump some prodigious rains on the coast of northwestern Australia over the next few days. Radar out of Port Hedland shows very heavy rains already affecting the coast, and sustained wind as high as 38 mph have been observed there today.

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