Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Tropical Cyclone Hamish

The powerful storm is raking the Queensland coast with high surf, but it's unlikely to cross the Australian coast. Instead, it will head out across the Tasman Sea, become extra-tropical, and eventually hit - where else? - New Zealand:
The category three cyclone is slowly spinning away from the coast but is expected to veer towards land as a weakened system by Friday.

Hamish was downgraded from a category four to a three around 1pm (AEST) today and is predicted to further weaken to a category two by Thursday and possibly a category one on Friday.

The Bureau of Meteorology's deputy director Bruce Gunn said Hamish was hovering about 165km east-northeast of Sandy Cape on Fraser Island and was moving away from the coast at about 11km/h.

"There is a very small chance it could make landfall,'' Mr Gunn said.

"We have a severe weather warning out for Sandy Cape on the tip of the east coast of Fraser Island.

"There is damaging winds of up to 90 kilometres per hour, abnormally high tides and dangerous surf.''

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