How Cyclone Yasi Compares Around the World

Lincoln Archer & Andi Mastrosavas
News.com, Australia
Wed, 02 Feb 2011 01:31 UTC

IF you're struggling to grasp the magnitude of Tropical Cyclone Yasi, consider this: it is so large it would almost cover the United States, most of Asia and large parts of Europe.

Most of the coverage about the scale of Yasi has tried to compare it with storms of the past - it's bigger than Larry, more powerful than Tracy.

But just as powerful is this comparison, showing this storm is continental in size. The main bloc of the cyclone is 500km wide, while its associated activity, shown above in a colour-coding to match intensity, stretches over 2000km.

The storm's scale of destruction is as shocking as it is inevitable. In the map above, the United States from Pennsylvania in the east to Nevada in the west, from Georgia in the south to Canada in the north and well into Mexico would be battered with 300km/h winds and up to one metre of rain.

The economic impact would be felt around the world.

This map shows the impact if the storm was attacking Asia:

Again, the scale is unthinkable - taking in an area from Japan, the Koreas and China all the way through southeast Asia, around through India and the Himalayas and threatening large parts of central Asia.

This would have billions of people directly in the path of the category 5 storm, creating a human tide of displaced cyclone "refugees".

This map shows the storm over western and central Europe:

Just as we saw in our visualisation of the Queensland floods, the whole of Britain would be overwhelmed.

But this time, France and Germany would also be catastrophically affected, delivering another body blow to the European economy at the least and also disrupting the lives of hundreds of millions of people.

Even the eye of Yasi is as big as a city. This next map shows the heart of the storm over New Orleans, covering Louisiana and neighbouring states.

The eye itself, at 35km across, would stretch over all of the Katrina-ravaged city's centre. In the maps below, you can see Shanghai and New Zealand's north island bearing the brunt of category five.

These maps are merely visualisations of relative scales and are not meant to suggest storms of this level would form anywhere in the world.

Instead, they illustrate an annual threat that is, if not uniquely Australian, at least so much a part of our summer that we speak of "cyclone season" as though it is on a par with "cricket season".

But every so often, we are forced to confront the raw power of our country and its dangers.

Reader Comments

adam7117 · 2011-02-02T07:18:39Z

Kinda reminiscent of...

...that movie "The Day After Tomorrow", no? You know, with those giant storm systems enveloping the Northern Hemisphere and everything...

And while this is happening Down Under, the US is getting Snowed Under. With maximum temperatures well below the average - and wind chill factors at unbelievable levels.

Those folks could sure use some of that global warmin' right about now. It won't be long before the ugly truth is going to become impossible to hide.

ptah · 2011-02-02T08:23:27Z

Selective Blindness

The situation "down under" is a direct result of what you refer to as "global warming" as is the "snowed under" position in North America. What you fail to realise is that humanities pollution is enabling more energy to be added to the global system. A result of this added energy to the system is that the climate is becoming more extreme, at both ends of the scale. Seemingly unbeknown to you is the fact that it takes energy to create the storms that are producing the cyclone in Australia and the storms that produce snow in the North Americas and it is the extra energy being absorbed by CO2 and associated greenhouse gasses produced by human industry that are exacerbating the situation. By all means stick your head in the sand, but don't be facile about wishing "global warmin'" to isolated pockets of the globe.

Appollynon · 2011-02-02T10:38:34Z

Ptah, how does man made pollution cause climate change on all the other planets? If your looking for an energy source as the causal source of the climate change, then just walk outside and take a look at the big shiny ball of light in the sky, and the smaller shiny balls of light called comets, and the EM waves and cosmic wind they pummel Earths Interplanetary Magnetic Field with.

Divide By Zero · 2011-02-02T17:38:41Z

There are graphs that show CO2 vs temperature, in those, they show temperature goes up first THEN CO2. Why? Ocean waters hold CO2, and temperature increases release that CO2 at scales we could not even match with all our machinery.

Then there is another graph, Solar activity vs temperature, and the solar activity leads the temperature. I will try to find the link and post it here.

redrock12 · 2011-02-02T10:11:27Z

RE: Selective Blindness

Please show us your data to confirm that "humanity's pollution is enabling more energy to be added to the global system."
There is more than sufficient data-on the internet and elsewhere- that proves this is not the case.
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How Cyclone Yasi Compares Around the World

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