Aka,
When leaves are stripped from native trees, and whole hillsides are brown afterwards, then that is a major cyclone.

However it did not occur much in Townsville or Cairns, and only occurred in less populated regions.

Many trees that come down in towns during cyclones are hand planted, and are often pot-bound when planted, and the root system does not form a proper tap root.

I have been through a cat 3-4 while living in a beachfront house, and seaweed was stuck to the walls and windows afterwards, and after cyclone Ada, periwinkles were found in swimming pools at Airlie Beach.

I tend to think that Yasi was very broad, but the destructive winds were not that extensive.

If a major cyclone does go over more populated areas, then the destruction to property and possible loss of life will be greater.

vanna, you state that "When leaves are stripped from native trees, and whole hillsides are brown afterwards, then that is a major cyclone."
This is exactly what the Cardwell/Kennedy/Tully area is like.

You are welcome to hold your opinion, based on Cairns and Townsville and Mackay, but you are plain wrong.

Based on your definintion and description of a cat3-4 Yasi was a monster. Just because you were not here to witness the devestation does not make it any less real. I find it odd why anyone would want to try to argue that Yasi was not a super cyclone, and that it was just lucky it did not hit in a major city.

Oops I meant to say:

I find it odd why anyone would want to try to argue that Yasi was not a super cyclone.

It was just lucky it did not hit in a major city.

aka,

The eye of Yasi was 30 klms across. If a cyclone cat 5 that big crossed the Cassowary Region then everything, not just flora, would have been flattened ... like Darwin with the Cat 4 Tracey. Tracey's eye was 7klms across.

While Darwin's relatively lax building code resulted in 9000 homes being totally destroyed. Yasi destroyed totally only 105 homes, according to 'Tropical Disaster' Anna.

Qld building codes only require homes to be built to survive cat 4 cyclone conditions.

So why weren't Ingham and Inisfail destroyed? It simply wasn't a Cat 5 Cyclone because if it had been then cyclone cat 5 winds would have battered both those towns and both Cairns and Townsville would have seen huge devestation from at least cat 4 winds.

Another pointer that it wasn't a cat 5 was that the eye dissapated quite unexpectedly quickly after leaving the Cassowary Coast region. No cyclone damage from severe destructive winds was experienced further inland ... they suffered only torrential rain.

Yeah I'd argue it wasn't a cat 5 cyclone and if you think it was you will be in terrible danger if you think you can clean up, 'bunker down' and ride out the next Cat 5 Cyclone that comes to town.

Aka,
It appears that Yasi has been rated cat 4-5.

For example,

Yasi maintained Category 3 intensity for the next 24 hours before being upgraded to a Category 4 at 7pm on 1st February. During this time, Yasi started to take a more west-southwestward movement and began to accelerate towards the tropical Queensland coast.

Yasi showed signs of further intensification and at 4am on 2nd February and was upgraded to a marginal Category 5 system.

At the time of writing there are no verified observations of the maximum wind gusts near the cyclone centre. However a barograph at the Tully Sugar Mill recorded a minimum pressure of 929 hPa as the eye passed over suggesting wind gusts of about 285 km/h were possible.

http://www.bom.gov.au/cyclone/history/yasi.shtml

As I have mentioned in a previous post, it was lucky that the cyclone did not cross the coast in a more populated area, it was lucky that the storm surge was not larger, it was lucky that Yasi did not cross over Mackay because of a lack of cyclone refuge centers in that town, and I personally think that extensive damage would occur to Brisbane if a cyclone of only cat 3 ever went over the top of it.

The Australian navy is also in such an inglorious state at present it could not be relied upon to offer any type of assistance in the case of a major emergency.

Our 3 biggest navy ships were all non-operational at the time of Yasi, and one has to question why we bother with a navy.

vanna,

let's get some facts straight.

If wind gusts at Tully Mill were assessed to be 285klms/hr then sustained winds (1 Min) according to the methods used in assessing both sustained winds and wind gusts in Cyclone Tracey, there would have necessarily been sustained winds(1 Min) of 240Klms/hr within approximately 80klm the edges of the eye. ie sustained winds (1 min) would have been greater than the maximum gusts of 181klm/hr recorded at South Johnstone during Larry, and they would have smashed both Innisfail and Ingham ... worse than Larry in Innisfail.

Fact.

For confirmation have a read of the Official BOM report on Tracey from around pages 40-45, from memory.

I get the feeling that you all think that if another Cat 5 cyclone passes through Mission Beach and the Cassowary region the destruction will be pretty much as occurred with Yasi.

If that's the case and it is indeed a feeling held in the community from Cairns to Townsville, then a terrible terrible error is being made and you are abetting setting up the community for a catastrophe.