Cyclone threat firms as far north braces for bucketing
Andrew Stafford |
Australia’s far north is preparing to batten down the hatches yet again, with a possible tropical cyclone set to cross the coast in coming days.
A tropical low is stationed northeast of Cooktown and is slowly tracking westward towards the Queensland coast.
The tourist town of Cairns likely to cop the brunt of the impact when the system is set to cross the coast on Friday morning.
The Bureau of Meteorology rates the low as a moderate chance of strengthening to a category one cyclone, putting the Wet Tropics between Cooktown to Palm Island on watch.
Senior meteorologist Angus Hines said the watch zone would likely endure gale force winds of up to 100km/hr – but heavy rainfall was expected to impact a much wider area.
A flood watch is current for already soaked northern and far northern catchments.
The bureau forecasts the system will track westwards towards the Gulf of Carpentaria over the weekend.
It is unwelcome news for graziers, who have already lost an estimated 100,000 stock after major flooding hit the Gulf Country in January.
“We’ve seen frequent bouts of wet weather across both the north and interior of Queensland in recent months, and there’s a really prolonged, ongoing flood situation across much of the state,” Mr Hines said.
“We’ve got rivers running extremely high at the moment.”
Mr Hines said another tropical low in the Indian Ocean was a chance of developing into a cyclone in the coming days.
He said the next cyclone to form will be named Narelle, followed by Owen, with cyclones named in alphabetical and chronological order.
Parts of the tropical coast have already triggered torrential downpours, with almost 300mm of rain falling at multiple weather stations in a 24 hour period up to Monday morning.
The far north’s Hinchinbrook Mayor Ramon Jayo said the shire was grateful for a brief break in the weather, but “we’ll just wait and see what the next avalanche brings”.
“To tell you the truth, it’s probably been one of those traditional old wet seasons. It’s a lot of rain,” he said.
“But we haven’t had any major flooding of significance causing any damage.”
Mr Hines said the likelihood of the system heading towards highly populated areas in southeast Queensland had abated.
“It’s still not quite at the point where we can completely rule that out,” he said.
“But the more likely scenario is certainly shaping up to be that this weather system will stay in the northern part of the state and gradually track westward.”
AAP