SPAC: MARCIA - Tropical Cyclone

[jaguarjace]

AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT BUREAU OF METEOROLOGY
TROPICAL CYCLONE WARNING CENTRE BRISBANE

TROPICAL CYCLONE FORECAST TRACK MAP
Severe Tropical Cyclone Marcia
Issued at 11:06 am EST Friday 20 February 2015.



Details of Severe Tropical Cyclone Marcia at 11:00 am EST:
Intensity: category 4, sustained winds near the centre of 175 kilometres per hour with wind gusts to 250 kilometres per hour.
Location: within 9 kilometres of 22.9 degrees South, 150.5 degrees East , 40 kilometres northwest of Yeppoon and 135 kilometres northwest of Gladstone .
Movement: south at 20 kilometres per hour .

Severe Tropical Cyclone Marcia has weakened slightly to a category 4 system, and is continuing to move south towards Yeppoon and Rockhampton.
It is expected to continue a southerly movement through today while slowly weakening.

A separate Severe Weather Warning is current south of Double Island Point and inland to the southern Burnett and eastern parts of the Darling Downs and Granite Belt.

13P MARCIA 150220 0000 22.8S 150.5E SHEM 100 948

[Alyono]

highest gusts in Rockhampton were below 65 kts. I believe the reporting station was on the weak side based upon the wind reports, so I wouldn't be surprised if the eastern parts of the city got significantly higher winds

[jaguarjace]

AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT BUREAU OF METEOROLOGY
TROPICAL CYCLONE WARNING CENTRE BRISBANE

TROPICAL CYCLONE FORECAST TRACK MAP
Tropical Cyclone Marcia
Issued at 5:07 pm EST Friday 20 February 2015.



Details of Tropical Cyclone Marcia at 5:00 pm EST:
Intensity: category 2, sustained winds near the centre of 110 kilometres per hour with wind gusts to 155 kilometres per hour.
Location: within 20 kilometres of 23.8 degrees South, 150.7 degrees East , 60 kilometres west of Gladstone and 65 kilometres north northeast of Biloela .
Movement: south southeast at 18 kilometres per hour .

Tropical cyclone Marcia has weakened to a category 2 system,and continues to move south over the Capricornia district while weakening.
The cyclone is expected to turn to the south-southeast this evening, and weaken below cyclone strength on Saturday morning.

13P MARCIA 150220 0600 23.8S 150.6E SHEM 75 967

[euro6208]

Tropical cyclone activity in the Australian region has been below average...

Lam and Marcia is one of the latest cyclones to make landfall in the last 50 years. Only two previous seasons, 1969-70 and 1987-88, had landfall even later...

[euro6208]

Deep question...

How many Major Cyclones (Cat 3+higher on the SSHS) has made landfall in the Australian region?

I guess not too many since this part of the world is not that active...

[CrazyC83]

Based on those data, the pressure was likely about 968mb when it passed Rockhampton about 10 hours after landfall at about 0930Z. Based on decay of a small storm, the landfall pressure was likely around 940mb.

[HurricaneBill]

Creal Reef had 5 hours of sustained hurricane-force winds between 5PM-10PM on the 19th.

http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDQ60801/IDQ60801.94371.shtml

Creal Reef is at an elevation of 1.7m.

Highest 10-min sustained wind was 79KT. Highest gust was 102KT. Lowest pressure was around 977.4mb.

[HurricaneBill]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-32Z8d2KVU[/youtube]

[jaguarjace]

13P MARCIA 150222 0000 27.0S 155.6E SHEM 25 1004

[jaguarjace]

13P MARCIA 150223 0000 24.6S 154.8E SHEM 30 1000

[jaguarjace]

Final visible image.

[euro6208]

Some debate whether Marcia was a category 5 cyclone (Aussie scale with winds GUSTING to over 150 knots)

Why does a country even classify a cyclone based on Gust not sustained? Marcia would have been a category 3 or 4 based on the SSHS...

US Hurricane Katrina weakened just before landfall from category 5 to category 3, but still did enormous damage.

We can't compare this gust cyclone with a sustained hurricane

Structural damages i've seen so far are mostly wooden houses...

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/climate-researcher-questions-cyclone-marcias-category-5-status/story-fnkt21jb-1227236188297?sv=8879deb6f84628ef104f7447881ab0a4#itm=newscomau%7Cnews%7Cncam-story-body-link%7C1%7Chttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.couriermail.com.au%2Fnews%2Fqueensland%2Fclimate-researcher-questions-cyclone-marcias-category-5-status%2Fstory-fnkt21jb-1227236188297%3Fsv%3D8879deb6f84628ef104f7447881ab0a4%7Cstory%7CBOM%20defends%20Marcia%20reports&itmt=1424856615590

[xtyphooncyclonex]

Euro, iCyclone said that the strongest winds stayed well away from populated areas. Those damage reports you are seeing are actually coming from the NE quadrant (or NW/SW over NHem) which means that they were spared from the highest winds. Observations over Rockhampton were low because the station was away from the strongest winds. Anyhow, Marcia had a very small and compact core which means that the strongest winds were covering a fairly miniscule area. It is most likely that Marcia would have brought much stronger winds over the W quadrants which was far away from inhabited areas. You probably have not seen the footage yet, which show exceptionally strong winds over Yeppoon but was far from the worst. It's like Tacloban during Haiyan but Marcia is obviously much weaker and smaller.