Cyclone Rene photos - 130 K winds - Tonga direct hit - photos

[yachtwork]

Not so much ecomodder, but good to view and a good time to be off the grid. That is when a cyclone hits. We had power and nobody else did. Still burning a lot of diesel though. In fact for the night of the storm I turned on every light on the boat and lit her up. Turned out to be the only lights in the harbor so everyone stayed away and we got out with no damage.

The full set of photos is here-

Cyclone Rene, Vava'u Tonga Feb 2010







Scott

[Old Tele man]

...where is Tonga from Guam or the Philippines?

...what was the lowest barometer reading when the "eye" was over Tonga?

...I used to fly into Typhoons (hurricanes in the Pacific Ocean) with USN's "Typhoon Trackers" who performed the same mission as the "Hurricane Hunters" in the Atlantic.

[yachtwork]

Fly into a typhoon? What did that feel like? Are planes ever lost doing that?

Tonga is between Samoa and New Zealand and east of Fiji. A very small country.

On the baro at the eye I would love to have cuaght it, but we missed it checking the lines and other boats. Really sorry I missed it.

Scott

[Old Tele man]

...yes, we actually "flew" into the typhoon's "eye"--called a "penetration"--to measure the barometric pressure (very low), humidity (very high) and temperature (moderate).

...the Navy Aerographers ("weather-guessers") could predict where the storm was going to track from knowing "where" the lowest barometric pressure was located inside the storms' eye...where the low-pressure was positioned, was where it was most likely to head towards.