Cyclone Ului Approaches...

Well so far, not much interesting weather. It's cloudy. There's a little breeze. A friend who works on Hamilton Island says it's pretty windy there. All the beaches have been closed. Otherwise, not much else.

The cyclone has been downgraded to a Category 2 as of sometime yesterday, but in the last hour or two the forecast has changed, and they're now predicting it will go back up to a 3 before making landfall.

(For the uninitiated, the light orange area is on "Cyclone Watch", which means gale force winds are predicted to reach the area in 24-48 hours. The dark orange area is on "Cyclone Warning", which means gale force winds are predicted to be there within 24 hours. The grey area allows for all the possible routes the cyclone could take if it shifted its course, so you'll notice the eye is not predicted to reach Townsville - however the storm looks like it should well and truly reach us, though that could also change.) You'll notice that just before it reaches Proserpine, it's predicted to be a Cat 3 again. I'm not really sure why - guess we'll just have to see what happens.