Hurricanes, Cyclones & Typhoons
The Carribean and Gulf of Mexico are about to get their third hurricane within a month. The powerful destructive force of these tropical storms is something that you have to experience to appreciate.I have been living in a cyclone area for the last 15 years, but have been lucky enough to have missed any direct hits. Those that have come close have only been small. It is an eerie feeling listening to the constant howling of the wind knowing that the centre of the storm is still 200km or more away.
The deadliest part of the storm is not the wind, but the storm surge that comes with some of the bigger cyclones. Although the air does not weigh much, it does press down on the earth and moer importantly, the ocean. That weight is variable. High pressure means more weight, low pressure means less.
Cyclones are intense low pressure systems. With much less force pushing the ocean down, the sea level at the middle of a cyclone can rise above the rest of the ocean. When the cyclone crosses land, the higher ocean levels follow. It's not like a tsunami, where there may be one main wave, but the sea rises rapidly, with each wave coming higher up the beach than the last.
Bathurst Bay in North Queensland (Much further noth than me) holds the record for the biggest storm surge. The tide rose 14.6 metres (48 feet) above the normal high tide and travelled 5 km (3 miles) inland.
With the amount of people, particularly baby boomers, moving to the coast in warm tropical cities, how long will it be before we see another huge storm surge, this time striking a city rather than a isolated beach like Bathurst Bay?
The city of Cairns in Far North Queensland has 130,000 people and is so close to sea level, that parts of the city go underwater during high tides. The Town of Bowen, while much smaller, has an entire suburb that is below sea level, protected by a set of sand dunes.
The baby boomers are flocking to North Queensland in search of the sun and a more relaxed lifestyle. That lifestyle may be shattered one day when they find they are living in a disaster area waiting to happen. Just to make the disaster complete, no Australian insurance company will provide cover for storm surge damage.
It's nice to live somewhere you can easily go to the beach, just make sure it's not somewhere the beach can come to you.
posted by Kevin Paine @ 10:44 am
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