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Tropical Cyclone Alfred is causing increasing intense rain, winds & waves over SE Qld & NE NSW. Humid, showery winds are affecting much of coastal & nearby inland NSW. Humid, unstable air in the far north triggers showers & storms. SE'ly winds bring the odd shower to Tas & Vic.
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06 Mar 2025, 10:56PM UTC
Landfall won't be the end of Alfred's impacts – what to expect in the coming days
Tropical Cyclone Alfred’s severe weather will affect parts of Queensland and NSW for several days, with heavy rain and flooding to persist long after the system makes landfall. Heavy rain, squally winds and pounding surf battered southeast Qld and northeast NSW on Thursday night into Friday morning as Tropical Cyclone Alfred lingered around 200 km to the east of Brisbane. The animation below shows a large area of rain on the southern and western flanks of Alfred impacting parts of eastern Australia on Thursday night into Friday morning. Image: Satellite and radar imagery showing Tropical Cyclone Alfred driving heavy into Australia's east coast on Thursday night and Friday morning. As of 6:30am AEDT on Friday, some areas northeast NSW and southeast Qld had received 100 to 160 mm of rain since 9am on Thursday. A few rain gauges in northeast NSW registered about 60 to 70 mm of rain in the 6 hours ending at 6am AEDT. This heavy rain was accompanied by wind gusts of 100km/h or higher in some coastal areas of southeast Qld and northeast NSW. The highest wind gust as of 9am AEDT on Friday was 120 km/h at Cape Byron, which is the easternmost point of the Australian mainland. What is Alfred going to do next? Severe weather will continue to batter parts of southeast Qld and northeast NSW on Friday as Tropical Cyclone Alfred slowly approaches the coast and eventually makes landfall. At this stage, landfall should occur on Saturday morning somewhere between Noosa and Coolangatta, most likely north of Brisbane. However, Alfred has been moving erratically over the past couple of days and its future track could feature more wobbles, with computer models suggesting that Alfred’s coastal crossing could be a prolonged process. One positive aspect of the current forecast is that Alfred is expected to weaken as it approaches southeast Qld. This is due to the system’s slow movement causing it to churn up cooler waters at the ocean’s surface and increasing friction with land as it gets closer to the coast. Unfortunately, that’s about all the good news there is for residents in southeast Qld and northeast NSW. Alfred is still expected to make landfall as a tropical cyclone and will deliver a prolonged period of severe weather over the next few days. The main threats between now (Friday morning) and the time of landfall (most likely Friday night or Saturday morning) will be heavy rain, damaging to destructive winds, massive waves and abnormally high tides. These impacts will be most intense near and to the south of the cyclone’s centre as it approaches the coast and makes landfall. Like all tropical cyclones, Alfred will weaken rapidly after it crosses the coast and should have dropped below tropical cyclone strength by Saturday night. However, that won’t be the end of its dangerous weather. Heavy rain is expected to persist over parts of southeast Qld and northeast NSW on Saturday and Sunday in Alfred’s wake, with lingering moisture also expected to produce further rain and thunderstorms early next week. Damaging winds and dangerous surf should also linger into Saturday. The inland movement of Alfred’s remnants will then carry areas of heavy rain over southern inland Qld and northern inland NSW on Sunday and possibly towards central NSW, including Sydney, by Monday. Image: Forecast accumulated rain during the next seven days, although most of this will fall between this Friday and Monday next week. Every additional hour of rainfall that occurs in the coming days will be adding more water into already saturated catchments and flooded rivers. This prolonged rainfall is likely to cause flash flooding and major riverine flooding in northeast NSW and southeast Qld from Friday into the weekend. Anyone in southeast Qld or northern and central NSW should keep up to date with the latest tropical cyclone advisories and severe weather and flood warnings in the coming days.
06 Mar 2025, 8:22AM UTC
Perth's first autumn 40°C in 13 years
Perth reached 40.3°C this Thursday, the first time the WA capital has topped 40°C in autumn since March 12, 2012. Other suburbs and areas on the city fringe were hotter, with maximums of: 41.5°C at Perth Airport (an 18-year autumn high) 42.1°C at Millendon in the Swan Valley, about 30km northeast of the Perth CBD 42.5°C at Pearce RAAF Base on the city's northern outskirts (another 18-year autumn high) The Fremantle Doctor kicked in during the afternoon, but not with much gusto. While Rottnest Island shed more than eight degrees from its maximum of 37.7°C at 1:17 pm to 29.6°C by 4pm, the city’s coastal fringe only cooled down by 2-3 degrees over the same period, with minimal effect on the mercury further east. The unseasonable heat was dragged over the city by easterly to northeasterly winds circulating around the high pressure system centred over the eastern part of the Great Australian Bight. Image: Synoptic chart for Thursday, March 6, 2025. When Perth last topped 40 back in 2012, there were actually two days straight of scorching temps, one of which reached 41.1°C. Locals will be pleased to know that there will be no repeat of that this time around, with top temps dropping back to a degree or two either side of the 30-degree mark for the next week or so as the wind slowly shifts to a southeasterly aspect.
06 Mar 2025, 2:01AM UTC
What to expect from Alfred's dangerous storm tide
Coastal areas in southeast Queensland and northeast NSW are already being hammered by huge waves and abnormally high tides, but Tropical Cyclone Alfred’s peak storm tide is still on the way. While wind and rain get a lot of attention when tropical cyclones are about to make landfall, the cyclone’s storm tide and storm surge are often less understood. However, storm tides and surges can be some of the most dangerous impacts from a landfalling tropical cyclone, particularly for low-lying areas near the coast. What is a storm surge and storm tide? Tides go up and down every day due to gravitational forces exerted on the earth by the moon and the sun, with coastal areas experiencing two high tides and two low tides on most days throughout the year. However, weather systems can also influence the tides by causing water levels to get higher or lower than the expected astronomical tide. Tropical cyclones are known to have a strong influence on tides because of their powerful winds and low atmospheric pressure: The ferocious winds associated with a landfalling tropical cyclone forces water to pile up along the shoreline as the cyclone approaches and crosses the coast. The decrease in atmospheric pressure near the centre of the tropical cyclone allows the water level to rise because there is less air pushing down on the water’s surface. As a rule of thumb, every 10 hPa drop in air pressure corresponds to a 10 cm rise in water level. Storm surge refers to the additional rise in sea level above the expected astronomical tide caused by the presence of a storm or tropical cyclone. The storm surge is the difference between the expected tide level and the observed tide level. Storm tide refers to the height of the water when you combine the astronomical tide and the storm surge. For example, an expected astronomical tide of 4 metres with a storm surge of 3 metres will result in a storm tide of 7 metres. Storm surges usually peak as a tropical cyclone makes landfall due to the abrupt spike in wind speed and drop in atmospheric pressure. However, the magnitude of the resulting storm tide will depend on the timing of landfall in relation to the astronomical tide. A storm surge has its most severe impact when it occurs around the time of the astronomical high tide. Some tide gauges along the coast of southeast Qld are already registering more than half a metre difference between expected and observed tide levels, largely due to the wind and waves being pushed towards eastern Australia by Alfred. Image: Tide predictions and observations for Maroochydore, showing the observed tide running about 40 to 60 cm above the expected tide in the last couple of days. Source: Queensland Government. Tropical Cyclone Alfred is currently expected to make landfall at some point on Friday or Saturday. The highest astronomical tides in the next few days will occur in the early morning hours of each day (overnight), with a secondary smaller high tide each afternoon. This means an overnight landfall on Friday night would cause a higher storm tide than landfall during mid-to-late morning Friday or Saturday. Wave heights have also started to increase substantially as Alfred edges towards the coast. Maximum wave heights in excess of 15 metres were recorded near North Stradbroke Island and Tweed Heads on Wednesday and Thursday. A maximum wave height of 16.52 metres was reported off the Gold Coast at 9am on Thursday. However, the Queensland Government has since removed this data from their website, stating: "Unfortunately the Gold Coast wave buoy has sustained some damage during this weather event. Data is unreliable and therefore has been removed." Even small changes in the timing and location of Tropical Cyclone Alfred’s landfall will have a big influence on which areas see the biggest storm surge, storm tide and waves. Be sure to stay up to date with the latest tropical cyclone advisories and severe weather and flood warnings in the next few days.