Yasi

As if the Queenslanders haven't had enough on their minds, with massive flooding and Cyclone Anthony, here comes Category Three Tropical Cyclone Yasi, a serious monster which will come in with such vigor and drive, that even after it goes extra-tropical, it will still be recognizable after crossing through the entire interior of Australia and exiting around Adelaide. It's still way out there, though, so people will have lots of time to ponder their sorry fates. The path is still a little vague, but FNMOC suggests it will cross the coast between Innisfail & Townsville Wednesday morning California time (Wednesday night, their time).:

Premier Anna Bligh today said Hamilton Island, in the Whitsundays, was starting to evacuate its guests, and other resort islands were preparing to evacuate tomorrow.

The Bureau of Meteorology upgraded Yasi to category three at 5pm today.

...The cyclone was expected to intensify into a category four by 10am tomorrow as it moved west over the Coral Sea.

It is forecast to cross land between Innisfail and Mackay late Wednesday or early Thursday.

...Falls of up to 1000mm could hit areas that have already been flooded this month, and the Government was working on models to show what that would mean for central Queensland.

...Yasi was not expected to dissipate quickly, or turn off the coast, Ms Bligh said.

"All of the modeling right now says this is going to cross our coast ... and it may well be one of the largest and most significant cyclones that we've ever had to deal with," she said.

...If it hits as a category three, wind gusts up to 200km/h can be expected, and 250km/h if it builds to a four, as Cyclone Larry was when it devastated Innisfail and surrounding communities in March 2006.

It's currently off Vanuatu, about 1975km east, northeast of Townsville, and moving westward at about 30km/h.

...She said the last cyclone of that magnitude to hit Queensland was category four Cyclone Larry.

Larry left a trail of destruction including damage to 10,000 homes and a repair bill of more than a billion dollars.

Ms Farrell said there were many measures on which to judge cyclones, including wind strength and the physical size of the storm.

In terms of wind strength, Yasi had the potential to rival Larry, but it was of a far greater physical size.

"One measure is how far do the gales extend from the central eye. In this case, Yasi is certainly a bigger storm," she said.

She said forecasts for Yasi would be refined as it approached, but all the modelling showed it was on course to hit the coast.

She said Yasi was a fairly fast moving system, meaning it was unlikely, on current information, to stay in the same location and dump vast amounts of rain on an already flood-devastated state.

...Rockhampton Mayor Brad Carter said he had great concerns the Fiji storm could become a large rain depression. If it hit the Fitzroy catchment, it could have a major impact on his city, still recovering from flooding that started last month.