Page:Hunt - The climate and weather of Australia - 1913.djvu/128

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This storm system was remarkable in that it retained its cyclonic form and energy over so long a period. Usually tropical disturbances spread out over a wider area on reaching higher latitudes and lose their vigour, but in this instance, as shown by the following table giving the lowest barometer readings along its track, the disturbance retained its intensity in a very remarkable degree throughout its whole path:—

The series of isobar charts which accompany this report shows that the disturbance followed the usual track of storms generated in the southern tropical zone, and first moved in a west and south-westerly direction, until caught in the easterly atmospheric drift of mid-latitudes, when it curved off to the south-east. They also clearly confirm what has been before established, that storms originating in the vicinity of the Fiji and other groups of islands east of New Caledonia are likely to affect the northern parts of New Zealand later. New Zealand has thus ample warning of the coming of the cyclone, and the Dominion Meteorologist, the Rev. D. C. Bates, was enabled to advise all the North Island coast stations some two or three days beforehand of the storm approaching.

The large monsoonal storm system which crossed the continent in the early part of the month, the continued monsoonal disturbance and heavy rains in Queensland later, and the development of the Fiji hurricane, are evidence of unusual activity in the southern monsoonal low pressure belt during March, and it would be interesting to ascertain whether a similar activity was shown in other parts of the Southern Hemisphere.

, 1911. On the North Queensland coast, March is perhaps the month most liable to tropical hurricanes. In 1911 (16th March), a disastrous storm struck Port Douglas, killing several people and almost destroying the town. A brief description of the hurricane is as follows :— Until the 13th, a tongue-shaped shallow depression remained persistently over the north-western quarter of the State and the Gulf of Carpentaria without developing unsettled characteristics of any definite kind. On the 14th data showed that the trough was undergoing a deepening process and