Tropical Cyclone Alfred will “likely” turn towards major population centres in south-east Queensland this week, with authorities warning more than 4 million people from Bundaberg to the Gold Coast that their communities could be “in the firing line”.
The Queensland premier, David Crisafulli, said on Sunday the system could cause serious and potentially dangerous coastal erosion, flash flooding and strong winds.
On Sunday, some beaches along the Queensland coast recorded 14 metre waves, as Alfred lingers off the coast and moves slowly to the south-east.
The Bureau of Meteorology said it was “likely” the system would begin to turn westward on Tuesday, potentially reaching the coastline on Thursday.
It remained uncertain where Alfred would cross land – potentially anywhere along a 450km stretch of coastline between Bundaberg and the New South Wales border. Most Queenslanders – more than 4 million people – live in the south-east corner of the state.
Crisafulli said authorities were issuing warnings on Sunday due to the large populations in the areas that could be impacted.
“This is a large system and presents a big challenge for a large part of the Queensland coastline,” he said.
“Given the size of that population, we thought it would be important for us to move to that precautionary and preparation phase. Some coastal areas are potentially in the firing line.”
While tracking maps are frequently changed – particularly over the longer term – the Bureau of Meteorology’s MetEye system showed Alfred weakening and moving slowly away from the coast in the coming days before heading back towards Brisbane.
Matthew Callopy, a senior forecaster from the bureau, said Alfred could potentially make landfall as a category two system. That could bring destructive winds, coastal inundation, flash flooding and heavy to intense rainfall, including rain totals from 300mm to 600mm over multiple days.
“The range of possible tracks for Tropical Cyclone Alfred are from Bundaberg right down to the Gold Coast,” Callopy said.
“The heaviest rainfall is likely to be concentrated at the southern edge of the system … wherever it crosses the coast.”
It is rare – but not unheard of – for tropical cyclones to reach landfall south of the tropics.
The closest a cyclone track has come to Brisbane was in 1990, when Tropical Cyclone Nancy tracked erratically towards the Queensland capital, before making a southward turn just off the coastline and never reaching landfall.
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Tropical Cyclone Wanda – the cause of Brisbane’s historic 1974 floods – crossed the coast near K’gari and Hervey Bay. A severe tropical cyclone crossed the coast near Tweed Heads in 1954.
It is far more common for a tropical cyclone to cross the coast north of the Tropic of Capricorn and return overland to the south-east as a destructive low storm. This occurred with Cyclone Debbie in 2017.
Crisafulli said the state was in a “precautionary phase” but warned it was possible for a cyclone to hit the south-east.
“It’s early days [but] there is the real chance of a prospect of a cyclone crossing the coast in the southern part of the state,” he said on Sunday.
“I know this is not a frequent occurrence. History shows that it does … that’s why we are taking that precautionary approach.
“We’re just asking people to be prepared, heed the warnings, do what you can to get ready. We will continue to make sure the messages come clearly, cleanly and timely throughout this journey.”
The state had reached out to telecommunications providers asking them to make bandwidth available for emergency messaging and would “pre-deploy” emergency crews in the coming days.
Alfred was about 500km east of Rockhampton – which sits on the Tropic of Capricorn – on Sunday afternoon. The bureau warned of strong gale-force winds on K’gari.
It also warned that severe coastal hazards were “likely” for southern Queensland and north-east NSW.
“A large and powerful to potentially damaging easterly swell as well as abnormally high tides are developing about exposed southern Queensland beaches, and are forecast to extend to northern NSW from Monday,” the bureau said.
