CYCLONE AT CAIRNS, 17 MARCH, 1911.

The Mercury, Hobart, Saturday 18 March, 1911.

CYCLONE AT CAIRNS.

MANY BUILDINGS DAMAGED.

BRISBANE, March 17.

A terrific cyclone struck Cains on

Thursday morning. The barometer

fell to 29.50 and the wind blew with

hurricane force, and was accompanied

by torrential rain.

The balcony and roof of the Railway

Hotel were lifted over the buildings.

The Queen Hotel had a portion of

the roof stripped off.

One cottage was lifted bodily off the

blocks, and the cargo sheds at the

wharf suffered.

The Chillagoe Mining Company's

house was unroofed and one gust tore

the roof and the balcony off the Empire

Hotel, and stove in the side wall.

A whole row of shops in Spence

street were more or less damaged.

Damage of a less serious degree was

done to other properties.

Nelson, on the Mulgrave River also

experienced the full force of the cyclone

and a good deal of damage was done there.

This cyclone struck Cairns a week before Yongala steamed into one off Cape Bowling Green. It was clearly a season of multiple cyclones off the Queensland coast. My thoughts return to the fact that data was collected from a great number of the more than 800 stations along the Queensland coast, showing a pattern of barometer changes warning of an approaching cyclone, as early as 9 am, 23 March. Cyclones could move at variable speeds, some alleged to be as fast as 100 miles per hour. The cyclone associated with the Yongala came from the northeast and if this was indeed a season of multiple cyclones, surely the data would have been patched through to Mr Hunt at the Federal Meteorological Bureau for IMMEDIATE processing and a formal cyclone warning issued to Brisbane and further up the coast as soon as humanly possible to warn shipping? Yongala departed Flat-Top at 1.40 pm, 23 March, which had given the Meteorological Centre 41/2 hours to issue the warning. This system was useless in the event of cyclones moving at 100 miles per hour towards a vulnerable coast line. Not one word of this was discussed at the Marine Inquiry.

The image below illustrates a further complexity. More than one cyclone could occur at the same time. This pattern could potentially have caused great confusion in terms of barometer readings and the extrapolated pattern/s of storm systems and might account for the delays in data analysis at the Meteorological Bureau at Melbourne?? But there again there is no evidence that more than one cyclone was present off Queensland, 23 March, 1911. It does, combined with the account above, suggest that there might have been a somewhat blase attitude towards these 'frequently occurring' systems and in part could have been the reason for Grantala, Captain Sim, departing Townsville at 4 pm, 23 March, when the warning must have been issued by Melbourne by this time. Perhaps masters judged the severity of the conditions at sea, some like Captain Sim, deciding to put into the shelter of Bowling Green Bay, by 7.30 pm, 23 March. 

Cyclones Marcia and Lam, February, 2015.

The Argus, Melbourne, Friday 31 March, 1911.

CYCLONE AT CAIRNS.

Brisbane, Thursday.—A telegram from  

Cairns, timed 3 p.m. today stated that a        

cyclone storm was raging. The wind was

almost of hurricane force, accompanied by a

downpour of driving rain and a heavy sea

rolling in. There is every sign of the 

disturbance continuing.

Owing to the cyclone weather, the

steamer Mourilyan could not leave 

Cooktown last night for Townsville. 

Interuptions to the telegraph lines 

at Palmerville and Fairview have 

isolated Thursday Island.

Further proof that there were a series of 'cyclones' striking the Queensland coast during the period. This one a week after the Yongala disaster.