La Niña The little Girl Climatic events shape Australia’s weather La Niña The little Girl Climatic events shape Australia’s weather. La Nina is a cyclic climatic event that influences the Northeastern Australia by delivering torrential rainfall, cyclones and massive floods. This climatic event annually can effects over 1 billion people in the Pacific region. Those years that fall under the influence of La Nina are often associated with an increased frequency and ferocity of cyclones.

What is a Tropical Cyclone? Tropical Cyclone is a large area of extreme low pressure that form in warm seas and oceans in tropical regions on either side of the equator Cyclones are characterised by winds rotating around an central eye These rotating air masses are called Tropical Cyclones, hurricanes in the United States and Typhoons in the Asia region

Figure 1) The exploding Spaghetti Factory Cyclones track randomly and are very difficult to predict where they will make landfall due to their random nature. A cyclones average lifespan is 9 days, sometime they can form and mature in less than 48 hours. Once Cyclones makes landfall land, the most destructive phase of a cyclone they will begin to weaken becoming tropical low depressions.

Tropical Cyclone Steve was noted for its longevity and impacted the regions of Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia before moving into the southern states. 27th February to11th March2000. The cyclone season extends from December through to April. Annually Australia gets 10 cyclones per year, with 6 crossing the coastline. During the years 1910-1992, 43 tropical cyclones passing within 150km of Mackay.

Photograph by Ern Mainka Rising flood waters at Agnes Creek in South Australia, during the 1988 - 89 La Niña event. Photograph by Ern Mainka La Nina causing subsequent flooding of the arid interior and damage from the associated Cyclone damage.

An example of the Southern Oscillation Index.