Tropical Cyclone Yasi has been, according to Queensland Premier Anna Bligh, the “most severe, most catastrophic storm that has ever hit our coast”. I asked Dr Andrew Ash, who is director of the CSIRO’s Climate Adaptation Flagship, if perhaps it didn’t just used to be really wet and windy before the drought and maybe we’d [...]
Signal: hurricane activity
Super cyclone Yasi almost the size of the continental U.S.
Yasi is so large it would almost cover the United States, most of Asia and large parts of Europe. This comparison, shows this storm is continental in size. The main bloc of the cyclone is 500km wide, while its associated activity, shown above in a colour-coding to match intensity, stretches over 2000km. The storm’s scale [...]
Record sea temps made 2010 the 3rd most active hurricane season on record
November 30 marked the end of the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season. Throughout the season, nineteen named storms formed over the basin, making it the third most active season on record, tied with 1887 and 1995. Twelve of those storms became hurricanes, and five of them became major hurricanes (Category 3 or higher). It was the [...]
2010 marks “strange” and record-setting hurricane season
November 30 marks the final day of the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season–a strange and highly active season. While it was an exceptionally active year, with 19 named storms, 12 hurricanes, and 5 intense hurricanes, deaths and damages were far below what one would expect from so much activity. To me, this year is most memorable [...]
“Hyper-production” of hurricanes in 2010 linked to warmer sea temperatures
Hurricane season in 2010 making history. Third most active season in modern times Long-range forecasts made last spring for the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season almost unanimously predicted lots of storms. Though they generally underforecast how many we would actually observe, they were right it would be an active season. Our summary of these forecasts, posted [...]
