cyclone ita heading to far north queensland, page-38

Well, if that's Ita, we've met her and she's moved on. My last post was at about the peak of what we got here.

It looks as if the Burdekin and Mackay will get less wind and rain still.

I'm thankful that for most in the North it is but an inconvenience but still have the nagging suspicion that the BOM just can't control their alarmism. Yes! I know it was cat. 5 at one stage but it degraded quickly. This degradation was only slowly [reluctantly?] reflected in warnings.

Actually, I doubt the rating too. The anemometer at Cape Flattery never showed gusts over 160 kph. That's high, but not really "very destructive" by cyclone standards. Althea was higher but it was sustained for a few hours. Tracy was higher again. From Wiki: The highest recorded wind gust from the cyclone was 217 kilometres per hour (135 mph), which was recorded around 3:05 a.m at Darwin Airport.[10] The anemometer (wind speed instrument) failed at around 3:10 a.m,

Where the hell did BOM get gusts of 253 KPH during Ita?

According to BOM FAQs it was Cat. 3 at most, most likely Cat. 2:

Category Sustained winds (km/h) Strongest gust (km/h) Typical effects
1 Tropical Cyclone 63 - 88 Below 125
Damaging winds
2 Tropical Cyclone 89 - 117 125 - 164
Destructive winds
3 Severe Tropical Cyclone 118 - 159 165 - 224
Very destructive winds
4 Severe Tropical Cyclone 160 - 199 225 - 279

5 Severe Tropical Cyclone Over 200 Over 280

But they had some rain. Here's a webcam of the Barron Falls:

http://www.skyrail.com.au/webcam/barronfalls