Cyclone (hurricane in the northern hemisphere) ita is set to cross the coast of North Queensland at around midnight tonight bringing winds up to 300kph high storm surges and rain up to 300mm in every 6 hours in its wake.



Fortunately it is not a heavily populated area but the folks that are there will be hanging on to something substantial.

My brother Tim lives in Mackay. Fortunately he is well prepared and already has his own Storm.

So what is the barometer down to? Looks like maybe 930 or less. Those storms do a lot of damage and bring a lot of flooding too. The coasts get a triple whammy, low air pressure brings higher tide level, so does onshore wind coming in off a wide ocean and so does floodwater coming down off the land when it meets the high sea levels. We had it all up this way a few months ago but the wind speeds were not as high. 300mm rain in 6 hours is well beyond the capacity of most run off systems. Always best to move stuff to higher ground and off lower floor levels.

They are expecting a tidal storm surge of over 2 meters when it crosses, a lot of homes will go under.

I heard it was down to 936 on the barometer earlier this morning (9 hours ago).
Not exactly the sort of blow I would wish to be out in.

current data

from Higgins storm chasing

LIVE DATA TC ITA: 5:45pm Cape Flattery is nearest and in the direct path of TC Ita... Winds gusts almost destructive now at 124km hr , and look at the pressure (purple line) dropping through the floor!

Image: Weatherzone

This is a pretty picture  but people on the ground may not appreciate the red dots.

You have 2 choices. stay safe at home or jump on the bike and ride against the wind. You will increase your chances to win Rossko's April fuel challenge. (You may even get a negative mileage if the wind pushes you back.)

Good luck to people living in the path of the storm.
CF

I went through a cyclone in Townsville on Christmas day 1972, it was what would have been a category 4, similar to this one and its an experience I don't ever want to relive. The noise is something I will never forget.
We stacked a very heavy table and some mattresses in the hall way and when we emerged at daylight on Boxing day there was just the floor and about 3/4 of walls left and no roof.
There was a 30ft long 12 x 3" laminated beam embedded in the floor and sticking up at an angle of about 45° and about 10-12 feet from us. We never figured where it could have come from as it was from an up market house and there was no suburbs within about a mile of us that could have been described like that.
Even now 40 years on thinking about it still gives me goosebumps.

http://www.bom.gov.au/products/national_radar_sat.loop.shtml

This is the OZ Bureau of Meteorology current image as of 9.55PM Unites States Pacific Daylight Time, Friday. Things will have changed when some of you lot have a look later on.

Fortunately it dropped its bundle once it hit the coast, they often do but sometimes they track down the coast and wreck everything in sight.

I'm in Cairns tonight.  I've been away working in Western Australia, and had to hurry home on Thursday when I heard that a cyclone was coming.  I couldn't bear the thought of leaving my wife and children to face a full-on cyclone on their own.

As it turns out the cyclone missed Cairns.  But you don't always know where it will make landfall, and I wasn't prepared to take the chance.  So we put our cyclone plan into action, just in case things turned bad.

Yesterday was quite calm, and today was pretty wet and wild.  But it is nowhere near as big and strong as the last cyclone in North Queensland, Cyclone Yasi.  The airport remains closed tonight.

If a big cyclone struck Cairns front on, it would do a lot of damage.  Fortunately, the damage to Cooktown wasn't that bad and there are no reports of persons injured.

Anyway, the K100 remains in the garage, and it doesn't look like it will be coming out for the next few days.

Good to see all is fairly much OK

The storm surges do a lot of damage if they coincide with spring tides and in particular high tide. Timing is everything, when they coincide its bad. Even the extreme low pressure brings the sea level up by as much as 2 feet in some places. Spring tides can put 6 feet in exteme locations and then add wind and another 3 or 4 feet before allowing for the high waves. One must never underestimate the extreme forces of nature.

looks like its heading south after breaking up some
I guess well have a week of rain down here ...nearly 2000 ks  from where it went to land
very gloomy round here today