Elsewhere in Weather News: February 21st, 2015
#### Two Cyclones Strike Australia #### This past week Australia got hit with two powerful cyclones, both of which made landfall on Thursday. The first, Cyclone Lam, struck the Northern Australian Territory and the second, Marcia, made landfall in Queensland.
Marcia was the stronger of the two cyclones and intensified rapidly just off the coast. It only took one day for the cyclone to strengthen from category one to a category four. On Friday it increased to a category five cyclone – equivalent to a category four hurricane, bearing sustained winds of 215km/h (gusting to 285km/h) and bottoming out with a central pressure of 929mb. Although Cyclone Marcia was the stronger of the two, Cyclone Lam still packed quite the punch as it reached a category four and brought with it sustained winds of 190km/h.
NASA satellite captured both cyclones on February 19th spinning off Australia`s coast before they made landfall. (Source: NASA)
In the aftermath of these storms making landfall, the damage was significant which is to be expected for the regions closest to where Marcia struck due to its severity. Yeppon, a town on the northeast coast of Queensland, was one of the hardest hit in the region whereby roofs got torn off homes and large trees were knocked down. In addition to that the storm left 30,000 residents in the dark. Some flooding still occurred in both affected regions. Thankfully the majority of residents near the shore took necessary precautions to avoid the worst of the storm surge – with both storms no injuries were reported.
It’s not uncommon to see cyclones hit Australia at this time of year as the cyclone season runs from November to the end of April, but to have two strong cyclones to hit Australia on the same day is uncommon. Since yesterday, both cyclones have significantly weakened as they moved inland and were cut off from their main source of energy – the ocean.
Maritimes Slammed by Another Blizzard
Elsewhere in weather news, the strong east coast storm that was talked about in last week’s EIWN was captured some incredible pictures. Summerside, PEI, was one of the maritime cities that was hit the strongest with winds gusting up to 115km/h. That, combined with around 25cm of snow, made for huge snow drifts. Most highways were impassable for several days after the storm.
Summerside resident digging out after the storm. (Source: @JoDoughartPEI)