TIM

History

Tropical Cyclone Tim was a short-lived and weak system that developed over the open waters of the eastern Indian Ocean in late January 2005, well away from the Western Australian mainland. Its origins lay in a tropical low situated roughly 930 kilometres to the north of Learmonth, which began to show signs of deepening convection on 23 January. This development was somewhat unusual given that the low was lying beneath the subtropical ridge, an environment that normally suppresses organisation, yet thunderstorm activity continued to consolidate around the centre.

The following day, 24 January, the system had organised sufficiently to be classified as Tropical Cyclone Tim, at which point it was positioned some 700 kilometres to the south-east of Christmas Island. With an anticyclone established to its south-east providing the dominant steering influence, Tim tracked slowly towards the south-west throughout its brief life, remaining entirely over water.

The cyclone attained only marginal intensity, with a peak of about 85 kilometres per hour in mean winds — equivalent to a Category 1 system on the Australian scale — which it held only briefly before conditions turned unfavourable. Weakening set in quickly, and Tim lost tropical cyclone status on 25 January while located approximately 470 kilometres to the south-west of Christmas Island. The remnant low continued on a westward course away from Australia before dissipating altogether.

Because Tim never approached the mainland coast or any populated islands, there was no landfall and no damage or casualties were attributed to the system. Its effects were confined to rough seas and squally weather over open ocean, and no evacuations or warnings for inhabited areas resulted from its passage. Tim was therefore one of the more forgettable systems of a period that also produced the far more destructive Severe Tropical Cyclone Ingrid, and it stands as an example of the many weak, short-duration cyclones that form each year in the remote waters between Christmas Island and the north-west Australian coastline during a slightly below-average season.

Sources: Bureau of Meteorology report Wikipedia