Cyclone Ita has been steadily growing over the past 24 hours from a Category 3 to a Category 5 and it is expected to hit Cooktown tomorrow night coinciding with the 7 pm Australian Eastern Standard Time high tide. Thousands are in its path if it makes landfall as expected.
We’ve been told that people on the PENINSULA & NORTH TROPICAL COAST & TABLELANDS NEED TO FINALISE THEIR PREPARATION as weather conditions are predicted to deteriorate even further overnight and into tomorrow. This system will be catastrophic wherever it makes landfall, which is currently north of the Cooktown area
We will be feeling the winds and rain here in Mackay but hopefully unless there is a shift in the pattern we won’t be facing anything too destructive. We will have to watch for flooding in the days after the cyclone depending on how the water runoffs handle the situation up North. It is expected to bring winds at up to 280km/hr as it approaches the coast, and these will affect both Port Douglas, Cairns and Townsville but it is Cooktown that lies in its direct path.
The image and latest information is courtesy of Atherton Live Weather.
Unload and Unwind 
Prayers for safety go out to all those in the path of this cyclone. Heed the warning from Jenni and the weather services, please, and get yourself somewhere out of the path.
And, Jenni, please be careful should the storm’s effects spread to Mackay.
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Shall do, survived Yasi and we have the emergency kit if the power goes [which it will sometime tomorrow] but we’re pretty ok, just winds and rain.
Cooktown is toast and it’s too late to evac anywhere other than Cairns or Townsville area and they’re going to be hit almost as hard as is the Tableland.
We’ve all been spending the day collecting canned food, baby stuff and supplies for as soon as the the storm system lessons as they’ll need more than what they had time to bring in. It will most likely be an airdrop as the roads will be out in the North West and the airports closed.
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Damn. I see you and many are ready to rally with aid. Good, that.
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It sounds like they are well organised but there is always a huge clean up afterwards. Hope you don’t have too much flooding and hope Cooktown isn’t too badly affected. I hope everyone is sheltering safe and not out in the weather.
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So do I – we’ve seen enough up here to last a couple of years I think. I’m pretty sure Cooktown is toast however I just hope they manage to evac to the storm shelters before it becomes to dangerous to travel.
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Yes I was surprised that they aren’t opening them until tomorrow as I imagine the rain has already started.
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Well hopefully they haven’t left it too late as it’s going to get bad overnight and I wouldn’t want to be travelling during the day tomorrow if you could help it.
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Prayers for all those in his path ,be safe because….. hold on to your hat dorothy kansas is going bye bye ….
follow the beast on :http://hisz.rsoe.hu/
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Yep – only problem – we already live in Oz!!
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You’ll all be in my thoughts today. Stay safe. It’s good to hear that you’re well stocked.
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Oh dear…Yes thank you for this so I, too, may pray for all those affected.
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Thoughts and prayers with OZ today.
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🙂
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Prayers for all to stay safe.
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Thank you.
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I’ve experienced CAT 4 on my coast and they are an awful experience. My thoughts are with you and those in the path of that monster.
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Thank you – we’ll know how bad it’s going to be in a few hours but the worst will come Friday night.
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Stay safe Jenni and hopefully everyone will be OK. I was looking at Wiki’s entry for MacKay and it looks like a pretty happening town. Your temperatures are really stable – there’s seldom more than 5 or 10 dgrees difference between your average for a month and your record. Here (Ottawa, Canada) we can have record temps of more than 20 degrees different than average.(either colder or warmer). But of course, you get some pretty bad storms sometimes that we don’t. We can have heavy rain/snow falls but we don’t get the ferocious winds you do .
Our prayers are with you.
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Thank you for that and yeah Mackay is pretty cool. We’re far enough north for it to be sunny and close to the reef but not as far north that it becomes so incredibly in the summer.
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