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Assessing the Impacts of Tropical Cyclone Tracy on Residential Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Journal 60 (2010) 213-219 Assessing the impacts of tropical cyclone Tracy on residential building stock – 1974 and 2008 Anthony Schofield, Craig Arthur and Bob Cechet Risk and Impact Analysis Group, Geoscience Australia, Canberra, Australia. (Manuscript received September 2008, revised June 2010) Tropical cyclone Tracy (Tracy) remains one of the most destructive natural hazard events in Australia’s history. Growth in the population and size of Darwin since 1974 makes it desirable to know what impact an event similar to Tracy would have on the present day built environment. To assess the impacts in 1974 and the pres- ent day, we apply the Tropical Cyclone Risk Model (TCRM) developed at Geosci- ence Australia. A parametric wind field generated by TCRM is applied to building damage models in an attempt to reproduce the widespread damage to residential struc- tures associated with Tracy in 1974. Employing these models yields a mean dam- age estimate of 36 per cent of replacement cost across all residential building stock in Darwin — a figure lower than that determined by post-event damage assess- ments. The unaccounted impact of large windborne debris is one possible expla- nation for the discrepancy between the observed and simulated damage. Based on the satisfactory replication of the damage associated with the histor- ical impacts of Tracy, the wind field is then applied to the current day residential building database in order to assess the impact of Tracy were it to strike Darwin in 2008. We find that the mean damage to Darwin for the same urban footprint as the 1974 analysis in the present day would be around five per cent. This represents an approximately 90 per cent reduction in the modelled damage, and a significant portion of this reduction can be attributed to building code improvements. Introduction force, giving a tropical cyclone lifetime of four days (Bureau of Meteorology 1977). Over three decades have elapsed since tropical cyclone Measurements of the characteristics of tropical cyclone Tracy impacted Darwin early on Christmas morning, 1974. Tracy are limited, owing to the lack of meteorological The magnitude of damage was such that this event still recording stations and the primitive state of satellite remains as one of the most destructive natural disasters in observations at that time. Observations from Darwin Airport Australia’s history. reveal wind gusts reaching 217 kmh–1 recorded at 0305 CST On December 20 1974, the precursor low was detected shortly before the anemograph failed. It is almost certain around 370 km northeast of Darwin. The first tropical cyclone that failure occurred prior to the occurrence of maximum alert was issued by the Bureau of Meteorology on December wind gusts. Corrected pressure readings from the mercury 21 at 1600 central summer time (CST), and this was given barometer at the Bureau of Meteorology regional office in the name Tracy at 2200 CST (Bureau of Meteorology 1977). Darwin recorded a minimum pressure of 950 hPa. Satellite Tropical cyclone Tracy intensified and progressed slowly estimates suggest a Dvorak T number of 5.5 (Bureau of in a south-westerly direction until December 23, when it Meteorology 1977). rounded Bathurst Island and very soon after began to track The damage to property caused by tropical cyclone Tracy directly for Darwin. Tropical cyclone Tracy crossed the was extensive, owing largely to the path of the cyclone Darwin coast just after 0330 CST on December 25. Within directly through Darwin. A survey of damage conducted 24 hours of landfall, wind speeds had dropped below gale in the aftermath of Tracy revealed that out of a sample of 6981 houses (of an estimated 8000), 3675 were completely Corresponding author address: Anthony Schofield, Risk and Impact destroyed, and many more suffered a high level of damage Analysis Group, Geoscience Australia, GPO Box 378, Canberra ACT 2601, (Walker 1975). It is suggested that 80 per cent of residential Australia buildings were either destroyed or rendered unliveable 213 214 Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Journal 60:3 September 2010 (Stretton 1975). Walker (1975) interpreted the loss of roof Several options for radial wind profiles and boundary layer cladding to be a major cause of extreme damage, resulting in models are available in TCRM. The radial profiles available a significant loss of structural strength and damaging debris in TCRM were assessed for their viability in recreating the effects. wind fields associated with tropical cycloneTracy . These are Due to the limited wind speed measurements in Darwin the profiles of Schloemer (1954); Jelesnianski (1966); Holland at the time and the failure of instrumentation at the peak of (1980); McConochie et al. ((2004) also referred to as double extreme winds, it is difficult to delineate the spatial extent of Holland); Willoughby et al. (2006) and a Rankine vortex. the peak wind gusts associated with tropical cyclone Tracy. Although these models share many common features, The Tropical Cyclone Risk Model (TCRM), developed within there are significant differences that become apparent the Risk and Impact Analysis Group at Geoscience Australia when each profile is calculated for tropical cyclone Tracy’s (Arthur et al. 2008), was applied to the Darwin region in an characteristics. attempt to replicate the wind fields and damage resulting from tropical cyclone Tracy. The aims of this exercise were Selection of the parametric wind field to: (1) validate TCRM by testing the model output against Tropical cyclone Tracy poses a significant challenge to this historical example; and (2) apply TCRM to Darwin with wind field modelling due to the unusual characteristics of present-day residential structural data to assess the influence the cyclone. Compared to other storms of similar intensity, which upgraded building codes would have on lowering the tropical cyclone Tracy had a small gale force wind envelope vulnerability of Darwin to another event similar to tropical around 100 km in diameter (Bureau of Meteorology 1977), cyclone Tracy. The results of this will have significant and a radius of maximum winds (RMW) near 8 km. The implications, as it is highly likely that Darwin will experience central pressure at landfall was measured at 950 hPa, which extreme tropical cyclone events in the future. together with the small diameter yielded a pressure gradient of 5.5 hPa km–1 (Bureau of Meteorology 1977). This value is unusually high, and results in a radial wind profile which has Wind field modelling process a sharp peak and a rapid decay away from the RMW (Fig. 1). Although it is possible to generate synthetic tropical cyclone tracks within TCRM, this investigation utilised the Fig. 1 Digitised anemograph record showing wind speeds track of tropical cyclone Tracy recorded in the Bureau of at Darwin Airport. Recording time has been con- verted to distance from the instrument to the eye of Meteorology tropical cyclone best track database (Trewin Tracy. and Sharp 2007). Wind field simulations were undertaken as a two component approach within TCRM. To reflect the behaviour of real-world tropical cyclones, radial wind profile models are used to construct a symmetric, gradient- level wind field, which is then modified with a boundary layer model to incorporate the asymmetric distribution of maximum winds in a translating tropical cyclone, providing a regional (approximately 1 km horizontal resolution) estimate of the winds associated with a cyclone. A set of windfield multipliers were then used to further modify the regional wind field. The resulting modelled wind field represented the maximum three second gust wind speed predicted for a location over the lifetime of the event. Parametric wind field modelling To determine the maximum wind speeds associated with the impact of tropical cyclone Tracy, we applied TCRM in a deterministic fashion. While TCRM can be used as a Comparison of the available parametric wind profile stochastic model of tropical cyclone behaviour, it can also be models with the digitised anemograph record revealed that used for individual scenarios – or impact assessment. the Holland model using a β factor of 1.8 was best able to simulate the sharp peak in winds near the R . This is not a TCRM uses a simplified 2-dimensional model of the MW wind field associated with a tropical cyclone to minimise surprising result, since the model was originally developed computing resource requirements. While it is a parametric utilising data obtained from tropical cyclone Tracy (Holland model, with some minor adjustments it retains sufficient 1980). From the available boundary layer models (Hubbert detail to reproduce many fine details of a tropical cyclone et al. 1991; Kepert 2001; McConochie et al. 2004), the Kepert wind field. The 2-dimensional model allows us to model the model was selected owing to the inbuilt gradient-to-surface wind field at a resolution that would not be feasible in a full wind reduction (which is necessary when the Holland model 3-dimensional atmospheric model. is employed, as it estimates a gradient level wind; Harper Schofield et al.: Assessing the impacts of tropical cyclone Tracy 215 2002), and the success of this model in replicating the wind calculated using the observed central pressure, and fitting field of tropical cyclone Larry (Edwards et al. 2007). The it to the recorded wind speed at Darwin airport resulted resulting model was calibrated to the maximum gust wind in using a gust factor of 1.27. Although somewhat low, the speed of 72 ms–1 recorded at the anemograph site at Darwin wind field generated using this figure was validated by Airport (Bureau of Meteorology 1977). comparison with the ‘windicator’ data, which suggested that a gust factor of 1.27 was best able to simulate the wind field Incorporation of site-specific wind speed influences of tropical cyclone Tracy based on general agreement with As an initial step, TCRM produced a ‘regional’ estimate of the the identified bounds and the lowest calculated root mean surface wind speed associated with tropical cyclone Tracy.
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