Wind Research Laboratory

It has been almost a week since Ex-Tropical Cyclone Debbie drenched South East Queensland. In the wake of the record rainfall and flood event, some interesting observations have surfaced. Near the tail-end of the rainfall event, the eye of Ex-Tropical Cyclone Debbie passed directly over Brisbane as seen in the Mt. Stapylton radar imagery provided by Dr. Joshua​ Soderholm at Fugro Roames (data from the Bureau of Meteorology). Also of note were impressive boundary layer streaks and turbulent structures meandering through the Doppler velocity field. The atmosphere never ceases to impress.

We have co-authored a Severe Tropical Cyclone Debbie Rapid Damage Assessment Report with our colleagues from the JCU Cyclone Testing Station and University of Florida. It is now live on the SWIRLnet webpage and can be accessed by clicking on the following weblink: http://bit.ly/TC_Debbie.

SWIRLNet - JCU Australia Our team will be deploying throughout the area for the current weather development in North Queensland. At this time we do not have a name of this potential Cyclone we will update with more information shortly.

The eye of TC Debbie is now within viewing range of the Bowen Bureau of Meteorology radar this afternoon. The Category 3 cyclone has an estimated eye diameter of approximately 80 km and 25-30 km radius of maximum wind. Wind speeds are gusting to 113 km/h at Creal Reef (http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDQ60801/IDQ60801.94371.shtml). Rainbands are coming onshore along the Central Queensland Coast between Mackay and Bowen.

The SWIRLnet team is heading to their final site to deploy the last tower before landfall tomorrow morning.

Four towers up, two to go. Stay up to date with wind data as it comes in on the SWIRLnet webpage. https://www.jcu.edu.au/cyclone-testing-station/swirlnet

Tower 2 is set up in more urban terrain located at Bowen. We will wait for the next forecasts to decide whether we go up north or further down south.

Tower 1 has been deployed successfully at Ayr Showgrounds! Next stop will be Bowen...

We are closely monitoring Invest 91P over the North Coral Sea with our colleagues from the Cyclone Testing Station for possible SWIRLnet operations. Numerical guidance suggests the tropical low could evolve into a cyclone over the weekend and make landfall early next week in North Queensland (photo credit: The Naval Research Laboratory).

WiRL PhD students Thomas Klötzke and Alessio Spassiani present their work at the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society and Meteorological Society of New Zealand Conference 2017 in Canberra, ACT.

2016 SWIRLnet mock deployment in Townsville, Queensland in preparation for the ongoing 2016-2017 Australian tropical cyclone season.

WiRL PhD student Thomas Klötzke presenting his three minute thesis at the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC research advisory forum in Canberra (photo credit: Dr. Daniel Smith).

Very astonishing weather patterns over and near the South-East US coast: Hurricane Matthew currently "hugs" the eastern coastline of Florida as a Category 4 storm and developed an outer eyewall which is clearly seen in the radar image provided by the National Weather Service. Even the models (Hurricane WRF in this case, provided by Tropical Tidbits) predicted the evolution of a second eyewall. On top of that, Hurricane Matthew is in close proximity to another Hurricane called Nicole (satellite image credits: NASA/NOAA GOES Project). One has to consider the possibility that these two hurricanes will interact with each other, which has been recognised as the Fujiwhara-Effect (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/qj.49704720010/abstract). The effect describes two tropical cyclones orbiting each other while closing the distance to their low-pressure systems. Although the outlook is still a bit vague, it is a possible outcome.