Pacific cyclones

Potential cyclone enters Philippine territory

January 2, 2013 

A potential cyclone entered the Philippine territory on Wednesday, bringing in rains in parts of the country, the weather bureau said. Arvin Bordon of the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration said the low pressure area was last seen 790 kilometers east of Mindanao as of 8 a.m.

The LPA was embedded along the inter-tropical convergence zone (ITCZ) affecting Mindanao which will enhance the winds of the storm. In a special weather forecast, Pagasa said Davao and Compostela Valley will be cloudy with moderate rains Wednesday, and moderate to heavy rains Thursday.

Northeast monsoon is affecting Northern Luzon. Cagayan Valley and the provinces of Aurora and Quezon will experience cloudy skies with light rains.

Leyte provinces and Mindanao will have cloudy skies with light to moderate rain showers or thunderstorms. Metro Manila and the rest of the country will be partly cloudy with brief rain showers or thunderstorms, Pagasa said.

Moderate to strong winds blowing from the northeast will prevail over Luzon and Eastern Visayas and the coastal waters along these areas will be moderate to rough. Elsewhere, winds will be light to moderate coming from the northeast to north with slight to moderate seas.

–Inquirer

Cyclone Freda reaches New Caledonia

Surf.co.nz,

2 January, 2013

The Pacific Tropical Cyclone Freda has pummelled the French territory of New Caledonia after causing extensive flooding in the Solomon Islands. Fiji Metservice is reported as saying Freda had been upgraded to a Category 4 storm but had reached its maximum intensity.

Tropical cyclone (tc) 05p (freda), located approximately 390 nm northwest of Noumea, New Caledonia, has tracked south-southeastward at 09 knots over the past six hours. Animated infrared satellite imagery depicts a continued weakening trend with warming cloud tops and the loss of all banding features. A 310906z trmm microwave image shows a tightly wrapped low level circulation center and the deep convection is now confined to the southern semi-Circle.

The initial position is based upon extrapolation from the trmm image and satellite position fixes from multiple agencies. The initial intensity has been lowered to 90 knots to reflect the weakening trend and is supported by Dvorak current intensity estimates of 90 knots from pgtw, knes and fmee. Upper-level analysis and animated water vapor imagery reveals good poleward outflow into a jet Max southeast of the system but is being offset by strong (20-30 knots) vertical wind shear.Tc 05p is tracking south-southeastward under the steering influence of the deep subtropical ridge (str) positioned to the east. Tc 05p is forecast to continue tracking southward through tau 36 but should then turn southeastward toward New Caledonia through tau 96 due to a deep midlatitude trough, currently over Australia, moving in and weakening the current

steering ridge. After tau 96 a deep-layered str will build in south of the system giving tc 05p a more southwestward bias.

Tc 05p will continue to weaken through the forecast period as strong vws and cool (24 to 26 degrees celsius) sea surface temperatures south of New Caledonia, further deteriorate the system. Dynamic model guidance continues to remain in poor agreement. The jtwc forecast track continues to favor the ECMWF solution through tau 72 but now shows the southwestward turn due to ECMWF losing the vortex near New Caledonia.

NOGAPS, GFDN, and GFS all show this general turn in the extended Taus and is consistent with the str that is forecast to

build in. There is low confidence in the forecast track due to the poor model agreement. Maximum significant wave height at 311200z is 40 feet.

Freda is the second tropical cyclone of the southern hemisphere summer in the Pacific. It follows Evan, which caused extensive damage and loss of life in Samoa and Fiji.

From 4 days ago...

Cyclone Freda lashes Solomon Islands

ABC,

30 Dfecember, 2012

Tropical Cyclone Freda has struck the Solomon Islands, bringing heavy rains and winds of up to 130 kilometres per hour.

Witnesses say roofs have been ripped off houses and trees have been flattened, while rising rivers caused flooding in some areas.

There are no reports of deaths or injuries.

Sajay Prakesh of the Nadi Tropical Cyclone Centre in Fiji said although the cyclone was moving away, parts of the Solomon Islands were being hit by "very strong winds and heavy rain".

"Cyclone Freda is now a category two cyclone and it is continuing to intensify," he said on Saturday afternoon.

"It will become category-three by midnight tonight, having very destructive winds."

Coastal and low-lying areas are at risk of inundation and fishermen have been advised to stay away from the sea.

Matthew Bass from the Bureau of Meteorology in Brisbane says Freda is no longer expected to hit Vanuatu and New Caledonia in the coming days.

"At this stage it's expected to maintain a reasonably southerly path and with that it isn't directly expected to affect Vanuatu in the next couple of days," he said.

"At this stage around New Year's we're expecting it to be quite far from New Caledonia, still to the north-east of the islands."

Freda comes just weeks after Cyclone Evan killed at least five people in Samoa before destroying homes and stranding thousands of tourists in Fiji.

Queensland weather forecaster Peter Otto says the Freda is about 1,300 kilometres from the Australian coast.

"This cyclone is expected to stay way off the eastern Australian coast for the next several days and the only impact we can see in the near future is the possibility of waves increasing into the early part of next week, but that's a long way off," he said.

Meanwhile, the weather bureau says a cyclone off Western Australia is unlikely to reach the coast.

Category-one Cyclone Mitchell is about 600 kilometres north-north-west of Exmouth and is expected to move south over the next 48 hours.

It is likely to intensify to a category-two overnight, before weakening again on Sunday.

However, David Farr from the Bureau of Meteorology says Mitchell is not expected to cross the coast.

"On the current forecast track it won't affect the north west coast of WA," he said.

"There's a slight risk of gales on the upper west coast if the system takes a track a bit more to the south-east from what we're expecting. But it is only a slight risk."