Topic: First cyclone for the 2007 new year - Tropical Cyclone Isobel

[Mike]

For those who are interested... a tropical low has been developing off the NW WA coast for the last week (which I mentioned regarding our monsoon onflow from Indonesia).  It's about 1200nm off the coast and from Broome to Port Hedland there is a tropical low advice.  Their forecast track map indicates that it will be possibly a Cat3 by Wednesday morning but tracking SE toward the coast.

I'm particularly concerned about this one because my wife is in Broome with her friend and kids on holiday and before she left her friend quipped that they'd get a cyclone to peev me off (being a chaser) but no-one expected one to occurr - well, except for me as i told them about the low a week ago that was sucking in lots of monsoonal moisture.

It's a bit too early to predict it's maturity, but by tomorrow we'll know more. The BOM website in WA has all the facts for those who want to peruse it.

Mike in Darwin.

[Michael Bath]

Hi Mike - hopefully they wont be impacted by the system too much. Latest forecast track suggests a Port Hedland impact.

[Mike]

Hi Mike, well she flies out tomorrow at 9am (wednesday) so she's pretty happy about that and so is her friend!  The system is taking it's predicted path and i guess there's some folk in her path that wish she wasn't, even though she's a 'weak' system.

Anyway, our monsoon may be delayed by about a month depending on where Isobel goes, she's taking a lot of the monsoon with her - which is the norm - so i'd personally like to see some of the drier states benefit from her landfall as we've still got the monsoon active, but not just ready to drop down yet.

At least there's been something to observe in the early part of our wet season.

thanks.

[Michael Bath]

Large parts of WA and SA look like they'll benefit from good rains at the TC interacts with colder air approaching from the SW. Hopefully some good falls will occur over the southeast of the country as well, though model output is not favouring this outcome at present.

MB

[Jimmy Deguara]

This is the result of the ex-tropical cyclone for locations in South Western Australia:

http://nyngan.yourguide.com.au/detail.asp?class=national%20news&subclass=general&story_id=544836&category=general

Esperence and some other locations have achieved rainfall records. This is resulting as the extra-tropical cyclone linked with mid-latitude trough to create a major event!

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara