When measurements don’t matter… a YouTube by Calem Smith explaining how the Bureau of Meteorology grossly misrepresented the strength of Tropical Cyclone Marcia.
Reader Interactions
Comments
Trackbacks
-
[…] Recent cyclones have been wildly exaggerated by the authorities, hoping for once for a catastrophe to actually happen: Category Five storms aren’t what they used to be, says Joanne Nova. Dr Marohasy adds: When Measurements Don’t Matter: Calem Smith […]
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
This link from Jeff Higgins starting around 1.15 shows that Middle Percy was in a position to record the strongest winds Marcia was probably ever likely to produce and if it wasn’t a Cat 5 then it was never going to be:
Thank you for reposting my video in your Blog.
If Marcia remains misrepresented, this will create complacency which will lead to avoidable injuries and deaths.
An excellent description of events.
A couple of things:
1. The CQ people are still doing it “really tough” with hot weather, no power and normal living having been disrupted appreciably and
2. BOM must correct the classification errors and ensure that the event is not used as another bit of false data in the “planet is warming” argument.
I do not raise the second point as an emotional issue, but rather as a factual issue. The world has already wasted trillions of dollars (and I am NOT exaggerating) on bogus schemes.
This financial effort could have gone a long way to alleviating poverty and improving the lives of many tens of thousands of people.
Just filing this here… got to somewhere after 57 minutes to hear from the BOM…
http://parlview.aph.gov.au/mediaPlayer.php?videoID=252978&operation_mode=parlview
Towards the end Alasdair Hansworth answers a question, and amongst other information, says that Marcia was a Cat 5 by 4am Friday morning. The media that I have spoken to over the last couple of days have been telling me that the BOM have told them that Marcia didn’t become a Cat 5 until later, until after it had passed Middle Percy.
Just more confusing detail I guess. While they are more interested in the general story, even if it isn’t logically consistent.
And everyone else more concerned about the clean-up.
Sorry to everyone still without power.
Of course no cats were hurt in this description.Bottom line is: physical evidence does not indicate a severe tropical depression.Sorry, but most people these days have no bloody idea what constitutes a natural disaster; a few roofs blown off in Yeppoon within 500 mtrs of each other does not constitute a severe event in my book.Sad lack of reality and a disposition to victimhood.. Poor fellow my country…
Next up: Callide Dam floods.
Locals are blaming the dam (a man-made structure).
Cyclone Marcia: Independent investigation into Callide Dam flooding called
Supplier SunWater said preliminary hydrologic estimates showed the rainfall was a one-in-10,000 year event. (man-made global warming?)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-24/investigation-into-callide-dam-gates-opening-in-cyclone-marcia/6254512
No-one has mentioned this … yet:
Early-release strategy for Wivenhoe Dam to prevent flooding
http://www.qt.com.au/news/early-release-strategy-wivenhoe-dam-prevent-floodi/2465728/
I was in Brisbane during the cyclone and tracked it closely on BOM as my daughter I were flying out on Friday night. I’m a principal structural engineer and an expert in wind engineering. The maximum, wind gust speeds were in the region of 180 Km/hr nowhere near the 300 km/hr mentioned in the media. Wind pressures increases with square of the wind speed so wind pressure which blows things down would have been only 36% of the pressure predicted at 300 km/hr. 45% if it manage to get up to 200 km/hr.
Flight out on Friday night was the calmest I’ve been on I’m glad to say, notwithstanding I would not have liked to be in Yeppoon right on the coast where it is a category 1 surface roughness (smooth as) and there is nothing to slow the wind speeds down.
just filing this here from today’s Courier Mail…
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/views-on-global-warming-led-to-weather-bureau-staff-exaggerating-strength-of-cyclone-marcia-claims-scientist/story-fnkt21jb-1227237685342
WEATHER bureau staff are so blinded by the view that global warming will produce more intense cyclones that they exaggerated Cyclone Marcia’s size, a scientist says.
Jennifer Marohasy said the bureau had invested hundreds of millions in having researchers investigate the impacts of human-induced global warming and this had coloured its views.
“They want to have more intense cyclones. (As Marcia passed) they ignored the observational data and it’s not good enough,” she said.
BOM under fire: You can’t call that a category five
Dr Marohasy, a climate change sceptic, has waged war on the bureau over global warming issues, especially that bureau observations have been altered to better support climate change arguments.
Over 350 homes uninhabitable after Marcia She said that, based on bureau observations at Middle Percy Island of a maximum wind gust of 208km/h, Marcia was a category 3, not five.
Dr Marohasy said Middle Percy observations of the critical period had been taken from the bureau’s website and this demanded an explanation.
Forecaster Jess Carey rejected the assertions, saying forecasts were based purely on scientific data. Mr Carey said Dr Marohasy was right that some data was missing from Middle Percy observations because Marcia wrecked the weather station about 5.30am on Friday.
Weatherwatch meteorologist Anthony Cornelius said Dr Marohasy’s reasoning was incorrect. “There may be a view to say Marcia was a high-end category 4 instead of a five but it was stronger than a category 3,’’ he said.
Despite Middle Percy’s wind recording, maximum gusts occurred on the forward side of cyclones whereas the island station measured the storm’s western edge.
“This alone means that the speed on the eastern side of the eye wall had to be a minimum 40km/h faster than the western side — or 248km/h, a solid category 4,’’ Mr Cornelius said.
The bureau forecast that the storm would intensify to a category 5 as it crossed the coast, with winds ranging from 195km/hr to 295km/hr near its core.
‘Long road to recovery’ after Cyclone MarciaMarcia was degrading as it travelled 60km over land before hitting Yeppoon yet still managed to record a gust of 192km/hr.
Mr Cornelius said world standard analytical techniques showed Marcia a high category 4 or low category 5.
Severe Tropical Cyclone Marcia
Queensland Regional Office
http://www.bom.gov.au/announcements/sevwx/qld/qldtc20150218.shtml
As Marcia was forming I was watching the American Satellite radar of the very strong Monsoons bringing rain to the coast and the central parts of Qld and NSW. Any dam operator had no excuse to bank water as dams are built to capture the regular 7-10 year rains, NOT ”1 in 10,000 year events” as they claimed was responsible for the flooding. Dams are not built to capture rain in the following 10,000 years
Modelling doesn’t work !
Brisbane had 14 major floods from 1900 when records started, and 3 major floods (+1 Dam flood) after 1900. It is accepted the Brisbane flood was a ”dam flood” and looking out the window to see the blackest skies ever would have been more effective than modelling ! The BOM radar which shows what’s coming ‘in real time’ was also dismissed
We have so many tools to observe weather and modelling takes precedence
My warning of what was headed to Grantham and Toowoomba was also dismissed
Well, meteorologists cannot be 100% accurate all the time, but they do a good thing by announcing us of possible dangers every day.
In the meantime, our daily activity which pollutes the environment reached levels that are no longer tolerated by nature and slowly we might face serious weather issues.
And I don’t understand why Australia’s government needs a climate skeptic to review their own renewable energy targets? coal seem to be so important there?
http://www.alternative-energies.net/australias-government-designated-a-climate-skeptic-to-review-its-renewables-target/
Here is a tweet from abc presenter Joe O’Brien with a photo of the damage from cyclone Lam cat 4.
https://twitter.com/joeobrien24/status/570757798297870336
Here is photos of Marcia cat5.
http://www.mamamia.com.au/news/cyclone-lam-recovery/
@Mark February 27, 2015 at 12:08 am
“Well, meteorologists cannot be 100% accurate all the time,”
The BoM predicted, with 90% confidence, an El Niño, which was suppose to rule the day. Where is El Niño?
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/11/-sp-el-nino-weather-2014
” … we might face serious weather issues.”
If the BoM can not get basic atmospheric processes correct now, how is it going to get the future climate correct?