by Jimmy Nightingale

Created on: February 10, 2011   Last Updated: February 12, 2011

Each year between the months of October and April, the warm tropical seas buffering Australia's northern coastline provide conditions conducive to the creation of one of nature's most destructive weather events - tropical cyclones.  The precise set of conditions necessary to create a tropical cyclone fell into place well to the north of Fiji on Sunday 30th January and Yasi was formed.  It achieved Category One status the same day and rapidly grew to a Category Five tropical cyclone, crossing the Queensland coast at Mission Beach, south of Cairns, on the morning of Wednesday 3rd February.  It was the first coastal crossing of a Category Five tropical cyclone in Queensland since 1918 when 'the Mackay Cyclone' and 'Innisfail Cyclone'; they didn't have today's naming conventions or technology to know too much about them until landfall was imminent. 

Say the word 'cyclone' to an Australian and the likelihood is that they will think of the devastation wreaked by Cyclone Tracy on Darwin in the early hours of Christmas Day 1974.  Tracy is Australia's most destructive tropical cyclone, responsible for the deaths of 71 people and wiping out most of the buildings at the time in Darwin.  The economic impact of Tracy was huge, turning Darwin into a virtual ghost town, with more than 75 percent of the population initially moving away.  Many of these never returned.  The process of rebuilding the city took years, however it did have its positives - it eventually transformed Darwin from a rough frontier town into a modern and cosmopolitan city and was the impetus for the Northern Territory gaining self-government.

Tracy was a Category Four tropical cyclone and, while this sounds close to the status of Yasi, in real terms there is no real comparison between the two.  Tracy was a compact and erratic tropical cyclone that just happened to pass over a major populated area.  Gale force winds only extended about 50 kilometres (30 miles) from its very small eye.  If it weren't for the misfortune of passing directly over Darwin, it is estimated that the damage and loss of life would have been minimal.  Yasi was not as choosy.  The eye itself of tropical Cyclone Yasi was as large, if not larger, than Tracy.  Plot them on a map of the continental Unites States and Tracy would be a small dot.  Yasi, on the other hand, would cover most of the map.  A graphic that shows the

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