Cyclone Rusty Heads to the Pilbara

Many of you in the northern hemisphere were probably unaware, but last week Karratha almost had an encounter with Tropical Cyclone Rusty. The week leading up to landfall, Rusty was all anyone could talk about, and to these unexperienced ears, a little anxiety began to sneak in. Back home, in landlocked Alberta, we have no real weather worries. The occasional tornado does touch down, sometimes with devastating results, like Black Friday in 1987, but that doesn't happen very often. We do get the odd snow blizzard, but buildings aren't destroyed and people aren't killed. In the grand scheme of bad weather, we've got it pretty good in Edmonton.

Talk of Tropical Cyclone Rusty had me going out to Woolworths to prepare: I bought a case of 24 water bottles, canned fish, canned beans and canned fruit. I loaded up on other groceries too, with the thought that if the roads flooded at least I'd have food to eat (although at the back of my mind I was thinking what if there was a power outage and all my food went bad?). I bought a battery powered radio and got my head torch out. I was ready to head to Beck's if a yellow alert was called, ready to hide out in her bathroom under a mattress if need be. The thing with cyclones is they're so unpredictable and it could have turned and headed straight toward us at any time. It was frightening and I don't know if following Oz Cyclone Chasers and the Bureau of Meteorology online helped or made things worse. The feeling of relief I felt when I found out it was heading toward Pardoo Station and not Karratha was indescribable. Poor Pardoo, but thank goodness it wasn't Karratha was all I could think. Even Port Hedland, which did go on red alert (the next step up from yellow), escaped the worst of it, ending up with hundreds of millimetres of rain and terrible winds instead.

This is an image from February 26 at 5am. Pretty scary, eh?

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And a satellite image of Tropical Cyclone Rusty heading toward the Pilbara Coast:

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March is apparently the worst month for cyclones as the seas are at their warmest. Hopefully we won't get as close as we did with Rusty, but you never know. They are unpredictable and funny things can happen. I will be more prepared heading into the busiest time for cyclones~ I've got my water and tinned food ready to go. While it was exciting, I can't wait for cyclone season to end April 30.