View across the Outer Harbour of Stornoway

Sunday 14 March 2010

Hurricane update - 14 March

Tropical cyclone Tomas is bearing down on Fiji, and is expected to pack a severe punch with winds in the region of 130 mph near its centre. The current warnings are:

A HURRICANE warning remains in force for the eastern half of Vanua Levu, Cikobia, Tavenui, Rabi, Kioa, Yacata, Koro, Gau, Batiki, Nairai, Wakaya, Makogai and nearby smaller islands.

A STORM warning is in force the rest of Vanua Levu, Ovalau, Lakeba, Vanua Balavu, Moala, Matuku, Totoya, Cicia and nearby smaller islands.

A GALE warning is in force for the rest of Fiji

Tropical cyclone Ului is now in the Coral Sea and moving west. The storm is equivalent to a category V hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale (winds of 155 mph near its centre), and I keep a beady eye on its northwestern flank, which could swipe the extreme southeastern islands of Papua New Guinea. Australia does not need to worry as yet. Ului is 900 miles to the east of Queensland, and is expected to veer to the south. Once it resumes a more southwesterly course is the point where we do start to worry. That lies just beyond the scope of the current forecast.

Sunday 14 March

A very late post for today, even though I've been at the keyboard for most of the afternoon. However that had more to do with finding out about those casualties from the First World War that I cannot trace on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website. Although someone more expert in these matters is going to have a go on the hard cases, I do not foresee a huge flood of information.

I had to go into town just before 7pm this evening and lo and behold it was still light! We're near the equinox, so the evenings are now getting nice and long. Friends across the pond, you should have put your clocks forward by an hour.

For some reason unknown to me, comment notifications for my YouTube videos have not been reaching me. Got some today, and boy, did the air turn blue. Never seen such profanity on any of my sites before, and worse than that, it was all related to the start of the Sunday ferries back in July. A number of linguistically challenged people decided to let off steam over the poor folk in the video, who were chanting a psalm outside the ferry terminal before departure time on July 19th last year. Rather than let the cringeworthyness of the situation speak for itself, the genitals were all over the comments section. I've scrapped those comments.