By Paul Homewood
The BBC have reported on Cyclone Alfred, which has just hit Queensland:
Hundreds of thousands of people remain without power in Australia after a cyclone brought wild weather to the east coast.
Communities in southeast Queensland and northern New South Wales (NSW) were beginning the clean-up on Sunday after the storm caused widespread flooding and knocked down power lines and trees.
A 61-year-old man’s body was recovered from floodwaters on Saturday, while in a separate incident, 12 soldiers were taken to hospital after their convoy crashed en route to rescue operations.
The storm had weakened by the time it made landfall near Brisbane on Saturday night, but Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Sunday warned locals of the continued wild weather and risks from flooding.
"The situation in Queensland and northern New South Wales remains very serious due to flash flooding and heavy winds," Albanese said.
"Heavy rainfall, damaging wind gusts and coastal surf impacts are expected to continue over coming days."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq8y3xgkpw9o
In just about every story about hurricanes, the BBC invariably include a paragraph to the effect that global warming is making them worse.
Strangely this latest report fails to make any comment at all about long term trends. Could it be because cyclones have become a very rare occurrence for Australia?
This is what the Australian Bureau of Meteorology confirm that not only have tropical cyclones becomes less frequent, there has also been a decline in the more severe ones.
http://www.bom.gov.au/cyclone/tropical-cyclone-knowledge-centre/history/climatology/