AceWeatherDesk – UPDATE – Tropical Cyclone Jasper remains a category four system but is expected to drop to a category three this evening and further weaken to category two by late Sunday or Monday.

Ace Press News From Cutting Room Floor: Published: Dec.09: 2023: BOM & ABC Live Moment News: TELEGRAM Ace Daily News Link https://t.me/+PuI36tlDsM7GpOJe

Its crossing is now expected on Wednesday or Thursday, anywhere from Cape Melville to Townsville.

“It’s unusually slow movement so far. It’s generally been moving around about the 5-6 kilometres an hour rate at this stage,” BOM meteorologist Shane Kennedy said. 

“But tropical cyclones can even stall in place for hours or days at a time.

“Certainly it’s giving us a lot of notice to prepare.”Cyclone Jasper is tipped to make landfall early next week.(Supplied: BoM)

BOM is confident Jasper will begin to move west towards the Queensland coast over the coming days, he said. 

“It’s likely to weaken over the next 24 or 48 hours,” he said. 

“There is the potential it could re-intensify back into a severe cyclone, which is category three or higher, before it crosses the coast. That could happen early on Wednesday next week.”

Severe weather conditions statewide

BOM meteorologist Dave Grant said Jasper would bring heavy rainfall totals, increasing flood risks in some areas of Queensland, while cooling other regions.

“Heavy showers should develop along the central and northern Queensland coast from Monday,” he said. 

“As a result of that, we will closely monitor the need for a flood watch for coastal catchments in the area around north Queensland.

“We also do have severe heatwave conditions that continue across areas of Far North Queensland and also through areas of western and southern Queensland over the next few days.

“Those conditions will probably start to abate as we move into next week.”

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Mr Grant said the Queensland summer outlook remains predominantly dry, but other rain and storm events remain a possibility.

“Despite the fact we do have an El Niño, and generally a warm and dry outlook, we can still get high-impact rainfall events, so the potential repeat of rainfall incidences like that can definitely not be discounted.”

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AceBreakingNews – Staff at a remote weather station may soon be evacuated as Queensland Braces for an unusual tropical cyclone.

Ace Press News From Cutting Room Floor: Published: Dec.08: 2023: The Guardian News: TELEGRAM Ace Daily News Link https://t.me/+PuI36tlDsM7GpOJe

Cyclone Jasper intensified into a category 4 system on Friday and was on track to approach the north Queensland coast around the middle of next week.

“While the timing of a coastal impact remains uncertain, the highest risk of a cyclone impact lies between about Cape Melville and Townsville, including Cairns and Cooktown,” the Bureau of Meteorology said in its latest bulletin.

“As Jasper approaches the coast there is a risk of re-intensification and the potential for severe impacts.”

Jasper’s current course sparked contingency plans for the bureau’s Willis Island station on Friday, located about 450km off Cairns in the Coral Sea.

Four staff members were set to be evacuated, with the station in Cyclone Jasper’s sights.

“In terms of our Willis Island crew we are putting in firm plans to look at what we do with them over the coming days, with decisions to be made on them over the course of today,” the bureau’s Dave Grant told reporters.

A bureau spokesperson said the remote station was built to withstand a category 5 cyclone but staff safety was their utmost priority.

Jasper was set to weaken over the weekend but was expected to intensify again into a severe tropical cyclone as it approached the north Queensland coast next week.

A cyclone watch – a warning issued when impact was expected within 24 and 48 hours – could start as early as Sunday.

“There is still a considerable amount of uncertainty of how strong and where the system will track over the coming days but the bureau will keep the community up to date with the latest warnings,” Grant said.Willis Island mapMap showing location of Willis Island, where Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) staff may be evacuated as Cyclone Jasper approaches Queensland.

The state emergency services minister, Mark Ryan, urged Queenslanders to be prepared and keep across warnings as the unusual cyclone approached.

“Cyclones can obviously have devastating impacts on community, property and life.

“This is not a practice. This is not a drill. This is the real deal … continue to pay attention to authorities.”

Jasper was about 1,200km east-north-east of Cairns at 9am (AEST) on Friday and moving south across the Coral Sea at 10km/h.

Heavy rainfall was expected along the central and north Queensland coast from Monday with flood watch alerts possible.

Severe heatwave conditions current in the far north and south-west were set to ease as the cyclone approached next week.

“Tropical cyclone Jasper is quite a large system,” the bureau’s Laura Boekel said. “Which means that it does have quite a lot of cloud bands associated with that, bringing showers, rain and thunderstorms.”

Jasper looked set to bring heavy showers across Queensland, not just the immediate area it impacted.

“We could definitely see rainfall ranging quite far out from where that core of that cyclone is,” Boekel said.

“Quite large areas could see severe storms as well as rainfall that could produce flash or riverine flooding.”

The state disaster centre had been moved to alert level due to Jasper’s trajectory, the Queensland police acting deputy commissioner Shane Chelepy said.

He said preparations were in place with both local and district disaster coordinators spanning from Mackay to Cairns.

The system was the first tropical cyclone to form in Queensland waters in December in an El Niño year.

Australia’s cyclone season is usually from November to April, typically peaking in Queensland in February and March.

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AceWeatherDesk – Heatwave could have final say on Cyclone Jasper’s track with northern tropical coast most likely target

Ace Press News From Cutting Room Floor: Published: Dec.07: 2023: BOM & ABC & CAIRNS POST WEATHER NEWS: TELEGRAM Ace Daily News Link https://t.me/+PuI36tlDsM7GpOJe

Tropical Cyclone Jasper’s future track is becoming clearer and the latest modelling data indicates the northern tropical coast is the most likely target.

Initial forecasts indicated the system may take a very unusual route to southern Queensland, or even north-east New South Wales, but the current severe heatwave over Australia’s interior will be the ultimate judge on where the cyclone makes landfall.

Essentially the longer the heatwave lingers the more likely Jasper will strike the far north Queensland coast, while a cool change for NSW early next week would have driven the system further south to central Queensland, or even stall the storm offshore.

So how does the air temperature over Australia influence the movement of a cyclone well off the east coast?

What controls a cyclone’s path?

You often hear cyclones are difficult to predict, but the truth is not all systems are created equal.

The movement of tropical low-pressure systems, like everything else floating in the atmosphere, is mostly dependent on the wind.

In the case of a cyclone, which generates its own wind, we are talking about the environmental flow outside the periphery of the system.

When the winds surrounding a tropical cyclone are strong, forecasting its movement is relatively straightforward – it will move quickly in a steady direction.

Severe Tropical Cyclone Yasi in 2011 is a classic example of a system which was easy to forecast and therefore had a slim cone of uncertainty.

Yasi was forecast more than 48 hours before landfall to strike the coast just south of Innisfail early on February 3 – exactly when and where landfall occurred.

Then you have the opposite situation when surrounding winds are light and variable, and forecasting becomes a nightmare – track maps for Cyclone Kimi in 2021 just 36 hours prior to arrival showed a potential target for landfall more than 400 kilometres long and eventually the system petered out offshore without ever striking the coast.

Jasper being steered towards the north Queensland coast

Back to the current pattern — the link between the seemingly unrelated weather events of the heatwave and cyclone exists because the system responsible for soaring temperatures this week will also control Jasper’s course across the Coral Sea.

The intense heat is due to what’s called an upper high – a high pressure system a few kilometres above the ground.

An upper high causes air to descend towards the surface, and it warms rapidly on descent at a rate of up to 9.8 degrees Celsius per 1,000 metres.

Therefore, the longer the upper high and heatwave last, the longer Jasper will continue moving west towards Queensland’s north coast.

So what could disrupt this path? For Jasper to stall or turn left down the Queensland coast the centre of the upper high needs to move east of Australia early next week.

This would not only ease the current heatwave but also set-up a northerly flow to carry Jasper south.

The latest modelling indicates the southern track scenario is now extremely unlikely, meaning both an extension of the heatwave for western Queensland and NSW well into next week, along with a cyclonic impact on the north Queensland coast.

It’s still too early to make precise forecasts on when and where landfall will take place, or at what strength, and it’s still possible Jasper will stall before reaching the mainland.

Below is a non-official model generated strike probability for next Wednesday which shows the most likely target has shifted north of Cairns: https://www.cairnspost.com.au/news/cairns/weather/cairns-to-be-place-of-cyclone-jaspers-coastal-crossing-latest-bureau-guidance-outlines/news-story/b8ba4d4c262f0a088dadf57e10d809fc

How unusual is a December cyclone for Queensland?

December cyclones on the Queensland east coast are very unusual – there have been only three since 1970:

• Category one Tasha in 2010
• Category two Joy in 1990
• Category three Althea in 1971

What makes this system even more intriguing is the presence of El Niño, which normally leads to a late onset of the cyclone season, along with the recent reduction in cyclone numbers due to climate change.

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AceWeatherDesk – The Bureau of Meteorology says a low pressure system hundreds of kilometres off the Queensland coast has been upgraded to a tropical cyclone: Cyclone Seth was the last tropical cyclone to hit Queensland in 2021, bringing flooding to parts of the state’s east coast.

Ace Press News From Cutting Room Floor: Published: Dec.05: 2023: BOM & ABC Weather News: TELEGRAM Ace Daily News Link https://t.me/+PuI36tlDsM7GpOJe

Tropical Cyclone Jasper is a category 1 system and tracking south near the Solomon Islands.

It is the first cyclone of the current season.

“In terms of El Niño, we typically see less cyclones and we also see the cyclone season starting a bit later,” senior meteorologist Laura Boekel said. 

Future movements still uncertain

According to the BOM cyclone track map, the system is expected to reach category 2 intensity later on Wednesday morning then intensify to a severe category 3 cyclone by Wednesday afternoon.

Ms Boekel said they could not say for certain whether the system will reach the Queensland coast.

“We don’t have a great deal of certainty if it’s going to track towards the Queensland coast, and if it does, the timings, the locations and the intensities.”

She said as the system does move close to Queensland in the coming days, it could lead to increased surf size, tides, rainfall and strong winds.

“We really are just encouraging people to stay up to date with the track maps and with the warnings if they do get issued,” Ms Boekel said.

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