Cyclone Alfred continues to churn well offshore from Qld and NSW today but on Wednesday it should start to track more westwards directly towards Brisbane.
The zone for Landfall is narrowing and today it looks most likely to be between the Qld/NSW border and just north of Brisbane itself. This places Brisbane city directly in the path of some of the most severe weather.
Meanwhile very large and destructive waves will increase around Brisbane, the Gold Coast and a large portion of NSW in the coming days.
We also look at what Alfred’s rainy remnants may do to parched inland parts of NSW and Victoria in the week ahead.
Keep up to date with the Bureau of Meteorology for official local warnings in NSW and Qld in the next few days.
Our next update will be on Wednesday.
The zone for Landfall is narrowing and today it looks most likely to be between the Qld/NSW border and just north of Brisbane itself. This places Brisbane city directly in the path of some of the most severe weather.
Meanwhile very large and destructive waves will increase around Brisbane, the Gold Coast and a large portion of NSW in the coming days.
We also look at what Alfred’s rainy remnants may do to parched inland parts of NSW and Victoria in the week ahead.
Keep up to date with the Bureau of Meteorology for official local warnings in NSW and Qld in the next few days.
Our next update will be on Wednesday.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Hello, kia ora, g'day, I'm Philip Duncan from Weatherwatch TV on YouTube with your Tuesday
00:09update for Cyclone Alfred.
00:11Let's have a look and see where the current situation is.
00:13It is well east of Brisbane at the moment, although as you can see the windiest weather
00:16is from the centre of that storm right to the coastline.
00:20New South Wales now more at risk, as today's modelling does shift the tracking a little
00:24bit further towards that New South Wales border.
00:27We'll talk about that in a moment.
00:28Look at the shape, very large centre to this storm at the moment and while the wind's a
00:33gale force all the way around it still, that's why it's Category 2 when we recorded this,
00:37you notice it's a little bit of a sort of elongated shape now and some of the strongest
00:41winds are in a sort of a line feeding in rather than perfectly around it.
00:46Very normal, once a cyclone leaves the tropics, moving into the subtropics and sort of dropping
00:50into cooler atmosphere, cooler sea temperatures, you'll find that the structure of the cyclone
00:55starts to change.
00:57It's a little bit like when you've got the too many blankets and towels in the washing
01:00machine and it's doing the spin and it all gets a bit lopsided and the washing machine
01:04starts to shake.
01:06That's what we're seeing a wee bit here with the cyclone.
01:08So most of the heavy rain is in the southern quadrant, much drier on the top half of the
01:13cyclone but those gale force damaging winds still go all the way around it.
01:18The steering force is this high pressure zone exiting Bass Strait and Tasmania and moving
01:23towards New Zealand and as it does that, the bubble of high pressure goes along to
01:28the east and there's a bit of a vacuum behind it.
01:30That allows the remnants of Alfred to move down the eastern side of Australia bringing
01:35rain to dry areas that need it but it also might be too much of a good thing for some
01:39areas especially in the coastal northeast.
01:43So let's try and break down where it's going.
01:44Here's the current tracking from the Bureau of Meteorology.
01:47This tracking and the category numbers may change a little bit.
01:51Whether it's a low end category two or a high end category one, very little difference
01:55in the wind speeds.
01:56The area here in the pale shading and the sort of white shading, that shows where the
02:01gale force winds are.
02:03But the area in the middle here with the pink shading, those are the damaging hurricane
02:07force winds.
02:08And so that's the area as it moves in, that's why the exact tracking matters is for just
02:12this portion of really damaging winds in the middle.
02:15So wherever the line goes of the tracking, that goes with it as it moves in.
02:19Of course it might weaken as it moves in, category one is expected once it makes landfall.
02:24But it's hard to kind of know just yet what it will be and you see the risk zone here
02:28from Bundaberg to Grafton from the Bureau of Meteorology.
02:31Let's have a look at the wave heights.
02:33These are still enormous at the moment, eight, nine metre waves, some going up over that,
02:3811, 12 metres offshore.
02:40So this is a bit of a quick animation, here is Brisbane and further down the coast there
02:44is Sydney.
02:45You've got the cyclone offshore here and the biggest waves are also in the southwestern
02:49quadrant and you can see the key down here is showing six, seven, eight metre swells.
02:54Let's animate this now for the days ahead and see that surge as it moves in, the waves
02:59go up as it moves in towards the coastline and the centre of that cyclone coming in right
03:05towards Brisbane with the biggest waves south of that, Gold Coast and down towards New South
03:10Wales.
03:11Also worth noting that at the centre of the storm, you have a storm surge.
03:15It's like the cyclone is a giant vacuum cleaner in the sky and it lifts up the sea into a
03:19bit of a dome underneath it by maybe another half metre.
03:22So you've got the big waves on top of the dome and then you've got the gale force winds
03:26blowing it all inland to these eastern areas.
03:30So that's why coastal erosion, dangerous seas are a serious part of this cyclone, as are
03:36the winds.
03:37Now I mentioned before it's got a bit lopsided now, you can see the worst of the winds on
03:41the western and southern quadrants of it.
03:44Not as much over here in the northeastern side and that's the part that's offshore mostly.
03:49So this is the part moving in.
03:50Show you the animation, it repeats itself a couple of times to get the idea of what
03:55is happening as it moves in.
03:56So it does get a little more compressed as it comes in, that's quite normal because the
04:00cyclone is interacting with land.
04:02But here is the final placement that we show you here, coming through and towards the later
04:08part of Thursday evening and you can see those strong damaging winds going in from about
04:12Lismore to Brisbane, especially around the Gold Coast and the border between New South
04:17Wales and Queensland.
04:19Now this exact tracking still is yet to be confirmed but we're starting to sort of narrow
04:25in on the areas that are most exposed and here certainly the most damaging winds coming
04:29in from Brisbane, the largest population in Queensland, and coming in towards the Gold
04:34Coast with all those buildings right on the waterfront.
04:36So you just need to be aware, very strong winds, storm surge, those are two parts of
04:42the cyclone and then of course you've got the rain.
04:44So let's have a look and see what is happening as we track the cyclone in the days ahead.
04:4810 o'clock tomorrow Wednesday, cyclone's still offshore but the rain's setting in.
04:52From about the border all the way down to basically Sydney, you're seeing wet weather
04:57kicking in for you.
04:58Lord Howe Island, you're away from the worst of it, you've got some big clouds around you,
05:02a little bit of wet weather but it's not as bad for you even though it looks very ominous.
05:07Thursday morning, now you start to feel the real effects of this cyclone coming in.
05:12The rain will become more intense, the winds become stronger and the sea may not be as
05:18low as it should be at low tide and that becomes more of a problem once the rivers start to
05:23really fill up with water and you've got high tide and a storm surge blocking it and that
05:27can cause coastal flooding and there's a lot of low-lying estuaries around Brisbane itself
05:32but also along the eastern coastline, a number of low-lying areas that just aren't used to
05:37seeing big swells and waves like this moving on through.
05:41As we go into the exact time of landfall, that's a little trickier to lock in, it looks
05:45like Thursday night, Friday morning.
05:48Here's the American modelling showing by one in the morning on Friday, it's already right
05:52over the border here between New South Wales and Queensland with the worst of the wind
05:57and rain pushing actually in to New South Wales from Lismore northwards, Brisbane southwards.
06:04Compare that to the European modelling, shows it a little bit further northwards coming
06:08directly in to the Gold Coast and around Brisbane and further southwards with the heaviest rain
06:13right on the border there of New South Wales and Queensland and going into the northern
06:17rivers and then we go through here to the Australian modelling, that shows four o'clock
06:21in the morning, further northwards towards Maroochydore.
06:25Now their tracking may also drift southwards, all those other ones might lift a little further
06:29northwards, we're still not totally clear on that, that'll be another day or so, be
06:33Wednesday before we can really lock in where the landfall is most likely to occur but you're
06:38noticing it's narrowing where those risk areas certainly are.
06:42All the heavy rain falling south of the low, not so much on the northern half of it.
06:47So yes there is some rain going up to about Harvey Bay but the heaviest rain, southern
06:51quadrant and that goes all the way down to Lismore and I'm sure you don't want to hear
06:55about that in Lismore.
06:57Now the rain is going to be broken up as we go in towards the weekend, the low itself
07:01falls apart between basically St George and Moray and you've got heavy rain continuing
07:06further down around the hills of Coffs Harbour, Port Macquarie and still west of Brisbane
07:12as well.
07:13So wet weather from Brisbane to Port Macquarie still pushing in and this very tropical northeasterly
07:19flow feeding into you.
07:21By Sunday here's the news many of you might like, especially if you're in the outback,
07:24seeing all that rain falling across New South Wales into areas that have not had rain for
07:29a long time.
07:30So that is some good news, hopefully it's not too much of a good thing because there
07:34will be embedded thunderstorms, severe thunderstorms in there as well as you've got that daytime
07:39heating mixing into it.
07:41The good news up around places like Lismore is the rain clouds do break up.
07:45So it might be a very heavy burst of rain for a day or two and then it breaks apart,
07:49that's the silver lining I guess I can give to you.
07:52And rainfall wise, here is the big picture.
07:54So look, the bulk of that rain coming smack back in between Brisbane and Lismore with
07:59this current thinking, but it spreads all the way down.
08:02Now the black line you see here on the map, that's the dividing range, which means rain
08:07that falls east of that black line drains out to sea.
08:11So that's an unfortunate map to show the heaviest rain is all falling on the eastern side, which
08:15means the bulk of that rain is then going to drain back towards the more populated areas.
08:20So that does pose a risk for Brisbane City all the way down to Port Macquarie and maybe
08:25even further south than that because this is still only an estimate of where it's all going.
08:31So there we go, that is the setup, here is the infrared satellite imagery, the centre
08:34of Alfred right here, you can see how lopsided it is on this map, all that heavy rain further
08:39to the south and the top half of it is dry.
08:42That's very similar to what happened in New Zealand just over two years ago with Cyclone
08:46Gabrielle, when that came down that had the equivalent of Category 3 strength and it looked
08:51just like this.
08:52The top part of it was very dry, but we had many deaths and a lot of flooding damage.
08:57So worth keeping in mind, this one's a little less powerful than Gabrielle was, but you
09:01can see there's a lot of energy in the clouds here and that is all going to be moving inland
09:06over the next couple of days.
09:07So stay up to date with the Bureau of Meteorology, they do all your local warnings, they'll give
09:11you better numbers that are more specific to the area that you're in, and their tracking
09:15as well, that tracking map of the cyclone is going to still shift a little bit, but
09:20it's certainly becoming more fine-tuned to Brisbane itself and the border of New South
09:25Wales and Queensland.
09:27That's all for us today.
09:28Back again tomorrow, Wednesday, as we fine-tune the track of Cyclone Alfred even further.