Topic: Tropical Cyclone Ellie and North QLD Flooding: 30 Jan - 4 Feb 2009

[Colin Maitland]

 

Ex TC  Ellie  could move out to sea and reform,The bureau's Greg Connor told ABC Radio.

He said that  the low would bring even more rain.

Major flooding was expected on the Herbert River on Monday night, and smaller rivers were already experiencing moderate flooding, Mr Connor said.

"We're certainly not out of the woods regarding this low," he said.

"There's a couple of scenarios we're looking at.

"One is that it moves further inland, which would still produce quite a bit of rain for the Townsville area, the other is that it, by Wednesday, starts moving out over the coast, and re-forms as a cyclone.

The last TC track map I saw this morning showed the low hooking to the south and then back out to see. The image is no longer available.

[Michael Bath]

Attached is the final track map the BoM issued before it was removed from the web.

[Colin Maitland]

Thanks for the map, I was to late too download it.

Cheers
Col

[Richary]

With a weekly rainfall figure of 700mm for Hawkins Creek to 9am this morning, it's understandable there is a bit of flooding going on!

[Macca]

Looks like Weatherzone are going for the EC scenario which has the TC or ex-TC moving along the entire QLD coast to the border by +168 hours.

EC still going for it and GASP is somewhat along for the ride.  BoM have kinda jumped on board with a forecast for Brisbane for Saturday through to and including Monday of rain periods, however, they have no mention (at all) of it in their extended forecast which is fair enough given how often the models perform poorly with cut-off low situations (including TCs) and the uncertainty surrounding it.

From a "chaser's" perspective, this could be a really interesting period. 

Macca

[Colin Maitland]

I would agree. The EC and GASP, seem to change more than a babies nappy, a 7 day forecast up here changes extremely every day. You can have rain x7 days, Tomorrow it will be sunny x 3 days then showers/ storms then back to sunny.

That is why I put in an other thread possible cyclone for WA on Thursday05/02/09.
I dont want  say much, but I feel they have been caught out up here and jumped on to save face. ( if this is not good thing to say, please feel free to delete, I dont want to cause trouble).

Will see how they go with WA predict. The  EC and GASP show this possibly occuring, but the WZ synop. for Sunday shows WA low moving away from coast and a low around Brisbane? area.