Price of Cyclone Yasi to Australia can be in the billions of dollars

Australia has been enduring some of the worst weather ever documented in the history of the nation. Cyclone Yasi, a huge storm, slammed to the coast of the state of Queensland recently. Just after Queensland experienced some of the most detrimental flooding on record there; the Category Five storm slammed to the coast with wind speeds upwards of 200 miles an hour. At the least, the destruction from Cyclone Yasi will cost Australia $2 billion or more. Australia has such a high amount of damage that personal loans on it’s own would never be big enough to cover the expenses of fixing the destruction. Article source – Cost of Cyclone Yasi to Australia will be in the billions by MoneyBlogNewz.

Cyclone Yasi has hurt agriculture areas

Just after the Australian state of Queensland had experienced the most detrimental flooding in a century, Cyclone Yasi slammed to the region. Right before hitting, the cyclone went from a Category 4 to a Category 5. Initially the size of Hurricane Katrina, the storm grew to nearly the size of the United States, according to the Christian Science Monitor. There’s a ton of destruction that was brought on by the storm in Queensland which means the chief agricultural areas of Australia were hurt. The agricultural losses are already thought to be at least $1 billion, with another billion in impaired property. An estimated 30 percent of the sugar cane crop in Australia is expected to be lost, which could cost as much as $500 million. About 75 percent of the Australian banana crop was lost too.

Food costs across the world go up

News of the possibility of the cyclone and crops lost went around. Reuters reports that this brought on a huge rise in food prices. The U.S. lost a ton of wheat in the snowstorms that hit while Australia lost a ton of banana and sugar cane crops in this storm. Together, the price of bread, sugar and bananas are all going up. Wheat costs in America have been going up for a while now. The winter storm, or "Stormageddon," is already causing this There is snow and ice on half of the United States Now there are even freezing temperatures hitting.

A lot of hurt from La Nina

There is a weather pattern that has caused the weather to take place the way it has this year. This is because it is a "La Nina" year, the Telegraph reports. There is lower ocean surface temperatures and atmospheric pressure because of it. El Nino is opposite of this. In the U.S. and Canada, there are colder, wetter winters experienced during La Nina. It also causes milder summers to occur. In the southern hemisphere, the rainy season generally has heavier rainfall and stronger cyclones.

Articles cited

Christian Science Monitor

csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2011/0204/US-sized-Cyclone-Yasi-could-cost-Australia-more-than-2-billion

Reuters

reuters.com/article/2011/02/03/us-food-prices-idUSTRE71223720110203?pageNumber=1

The Telegraph

telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/8297904/Cyclone-Yasi-La-Nina-and-record-ocean-temperatures-behind-storm.html