Christmas Cyclone
 

Woke this morning to strong winds. My wife who was in Darwin for Cyclone Tracey does not sleep in such circumstances. I tried to go back to sleep but she woke me to say a cyclone is on the way.

Quickly we picked up the light things on the veranda to bring them inside a filled a jerry can of water. Little time to prepare but it is only a category 1 and a small system too. Looks like it has just come ashore to the east of us. Corn flattened, lots of leaves stripped and rain horizontal.

Not the Christmas present we wanted, Cyclone Tasha!

Eye now just to the south, south-east of us.

Just had a huge whirl wind go through. Winds now almost westerly so the eye is south. Wings less consistent, more gusty than earlier but top speeds still as high.

The wetland below the house is now a lake.

Bananas and Paw-paws are down.

Wow, Alan, that's not what we wanted for you, either.
Stay safe & all the best
Bokhara

Had a period of light winds but not dead calm as one would expect in the eye of a cyclone. System seems to be becoming disorganised. Winds have now swung around to be east of north. Wonder if they could stand my fruit trees up again? A few strong gusts as I type.

Just realised that not everyone will know that I am in Yungaburra on the Atherton Tablelands in north Queensland, Australia.

Thanks Bokhara2, seems the worst of the winds are past.

Wishing everyone a safe and happy festive season.

Cripes, Alan, glad it was only a category 1. Sorry about your bananas and pawpaws though. Nothing in Cairns, except its almost eerily still with thick cloud, monsoonal heavy rain of past few days has stopped - must have been a power failure through the night as clocks stopped at 1 am.

Pat,
Have picked the mature corn and tried standing some of the younger stuff up. One of the paw-paws will be OK to eat but the banana bunch is too immature. Last of the lettuce are shredded. At least it is only food and not my livelihood. I have a very late fruiting valencia orange and only two of the remaining 20+ fruit dropped.

Dry here now too so have been up on the roof clearing the gutters and fixing a leak where a piece of flashing moved enough to break the seal. May have been a leafy twig that got speared under the flashing and then flapped around.

Storm water running down a nearby road overflows the drain in heavy rain, rushes down our driveway, over the humps which will stop normal flows and into our carport. Still better than our new neighbours who had megalitres of water delivered via the road drain which was blocked near their place. It came to within two centimetres of their kitchen door!

I have patched up the driveway with three barrows of gravel and now only have the fallen trees and branches to clear away. Not what I planned for today but I am still better off than most people in this world.

Just had a look at the weather radar and it seems that all the moisture is being drawn farther south so I'll have no excuse to stop me from more cleaning up.

I just saw film footage on American telly moments ago, and I cannot begin to express my sorrow at the misfortune of such life-threatening weather, and my hope that all Fodorites and their loved ones currently in Oz are safe.

Please post back and let us know. We most definitely care.

BC

Hi Alan,

Cyclones can be so selective, this one I believe crossed the coast at Gordonvale, friends in Palm Cove where we had Christmas lunch were awoken at 4am by roaring winds, and spent the first couple of hours of Christmas Day cleaning out leaves and debris from pools, etc. And yet, here at Stratford, closer to Gordonvale than Palm Cove we had no wind, just very heavy rain.

Hope this one wasn't a sign of things to come, we're barely into cyclone season yet, don't want another Larry!

Gee Alan, you really copped it up there didn't you?

Glad to see your comment Pat, was just about to email you to see what had happened in your camp.

Those old frogs really know what they're croaking about ... "Knee Deep, Knee Deep" "More Rain, More Rain". Someone needs to tell Huey they're commenting, not instructing, though!

All well here.

The cyclone crossed here but the eye was disorganised by that time. Neighbours less than a kilometre away had complete calm but it was not quite so here. They also saw frigate birds in the eye of the cyclone. These birds are normally pirates of the sea.

Today I had to rescue that snake again when it got stuck trying to get into the roof. That's it. I'm going to block off the access. Will blog about it so you can see the pictures.

On reflection it is very unlikely to be the same snake as before. I've told the story here, http://alanswildlife.blogspot.com/20...t-vacuous.html

Life is sounding pretty tough over in Queensland at present with the terrible flooding following the cyclone. Haven't got an atlas with me on holiday so I am not sure where the places are that were evacuated yesterday - just that they are in Q'land. My best wishes to all who have been affected - I hope you'll bounce back without too much loss and heartbreak.