At 6:00 am EST Severe Tropical Cyclone Ita, Category 5, was estimated to be 235 kilometres north northeast of Cooktown and 380 kilometres north of Cairns.
A Cyclone Warning is in effect for coastal areas from Lockhart River to Innisfail including Cooktown, Port Douglas and Cairns, and extending inland to areas including Kalinga, Palmerville, Mareeba and Chillagoe, Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology said.
Tropical cyclone Ita is the most severe system it has seen approach the Queensland coast since Cyclone Yasi in 2011, ABC News has reported quoting the Weather Bureau.
Cyclone Ita caused massive flooding across the Solomon Islands in early April 2014. A state of emergency was declared after Honiara's main river, the Matanikau, burst its banks and caused disastrous flooding in Solomon Islands.
CYCLONE Ita is expected to pass further inland than originally expected, with the Bureau of Meteorology revising the projected path of the system westward in the latest modelling.
The Bureau is now expecting the cyclone to head southward, further west of Mareeba tomorrow night before leaving the state as a tropical low to the south of Cardwell on Sunday morning.
BOM senior forecaster Pradeep Singh said Port Douglas was on the edge of the warning zone, and would receive strong winds and rain as the cyclone passed inland.
But he said there was little change to the cyclone’s predicted path as it made landfall later tonight around Cape Flattery and Hope Vale.
Hope Vale mayor Greg McLean said a number of trees had already been torn down in the township, but the town was still bracing for the brunt of the cyclone.
“We’ve seen a couple of trees get uprooted already, and I’m sure there’s a few more down the road,” he said. “We can only wait to see what happens.”
Wind gusts have reached 139km/h at Cape Flattery, with 76.4mm of rainfall recorded since 9am this morning.
sources: couriermail.com.au
disaster-report.com
No comments