Stoat - Where?

Super Storm

I don’t know what Australia has done to piss off Mother Nature recently, but the worst floods in Queensland in 40 years, more flooding in New South Wales and forest fires in Western Australia are being followed by Cyclone Yasi, a mega storm on the scale that you might expect from Roland Emmerich.

To get an idea of its size, it’s worth measuring it in terms of countries. Measuring around 500km in diameter, Cyclone Yasi would pretty much cover Great Britain outright, which is only 630km long and 400km wide at its longest and widest.

The sheer size of Queensland means that despite the cyclone being on course to make landfall directly over Cairns, Brisbane 1680km to the south is unlikely to have any problems. (This yet again reminds me of just how big Australia is, or just how small England is.) Still, it is telling that we could still see some effects here even this far away.

Again, kudos must be given to Queensland’s Premier Anna Bligh, the emergency services, the combined armed forces and the police, as so far it appears that the evacuations have proceeded without incident. After an excellent performance through the Queensland flooding, it appears that this new crisis will be managed effectively as well. I wouldn’t be surprised if both Anna Bligh and Campbell Newman were re-elected convincingly off the back of this.