People have been warned to leave or prepare for the worst, with a tropical cyclone on track to cross a densely populated part of Australia’s coast for the first time in 50 years.
Tropical Cyclone Alfred is looming off Queensland’s coast, threatening to bring heavy rainfall, damaging winds and monster waves.
The Bureau of Meteorology’s cyclone forecast published on Monday evening, said Alfred was expected to maintain intensity as a category 2 cyclone and make landfall between Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast late on Thursday or on Friday morning.
Communities from Sandy Cape south to Grafton, including Brisbane, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and Byron Bay, were in the watch zone.
It would mark the first time since 1974 Queensland’s southeast has taken a direct hit from a cyclone.
The crossing location is more likely to be near Brisbane with towns south of the city at risk of the most serious rain and wind conditions.
Island communities east of Brisbane are warned to leave now or be prepared to ride out the storm.
“There will come a point where it’ll be too late to leave those islands,” state disaster coordinator, Shane Chelepy, told reporters on Monday.
Ferry and barge services may cease to islands in the next 24 to 36 hours.
Generators, health professionals and emergency services are set to be deployed to the islands.
Emergency services have urged anyone living on house boats to consider evacuating while low lying or coastal southeast communities should begin sandbagging before heavy rainfall begins.
Shipping operations at the Sunshine Coast’s Mooloolaba have stopped until Alfred passes.
Two cruise ships are looking for alternate ports to dock while another will land at Brisbane to offload passengers.
The Queensland premier, David Crisafulli, said weather modelling from overnight and Monday morning had reinforced the prospect that Alfred would soon veer towards southeast Queensland.
Crisafulli said there was now a “high” likelihood that the storm would reach landfall between K’gari and the New South Wales border, a large stretch of coastline that includes heavily populated areas with about 4 million people, and the city of Brisbane.
The cyclone is forecast to cross the coastline as a category 2 system on Thursday or early Friday.
More than 700 mm of rain could inundate parts of southeast Queensland and northeast NSW later this week as Tropical Cyclone Alfred makes landfall over a densely populated stretch of Australia’s east coast. https://t.co/02pqygr9CV pic.twitter.com/AGtvLofT8b
— Weatherzone (@weatherzone) March 3, 2025
Alfred is a category one system in the Coral Sea, about 450km northeast of Brisbane.
It is “yo-yoing” between a category one and two system as it travels abount 20km/h south east.
The system is expected to slow and do a U-turn towards the Queensland coast on Tuesday before making landfall later in the week.
Winds at the centre of the cyclone are 95 km/h with gusts of up to 130 km/h.
Marine Rescue Queensland has urged boaties to stay home and not go fishing while the system sweeps through.
Crisafulli said the storm brought three layers of threat to residents largely unaccustomed to a tropical cyclone hitting the coast so far below the tropic of capricorn.
The first was from large surf, tidal storm surge and coastal erosion. Some Queensland beaches recorded waves of up to 14m at the weekend and there is increasing concern for Golden Beach, at the southern tip of the Sunshine Coast, after surging tides cut through the northern tip of Bribie Island.
The island provides a natural barrier that otherwise protects Golden Beach. Without it, there is serious concern about the impact of storm surge.
Crisafulli said there was concern among authorities that the cyclone could cross the coast coinciding with a high tide, which would be particularly destructive along the coast.
A second concern was from damaging winds as the storm nears. The third is from heavy rainfall that would probably concentrate at the southern fringe of Tropical Cyclone Alfred as it crosses the coast.
Authorities have moved to a preparatory footing several days ahead of the predicted impacts, given the potential path of the cyclone includes the heavily populated areas around Brisbane. The Queensland capital is particularly flood-prone and has been severely inundated three times in the past 15 years.
“This is a serious impact,” Crisafulli said.
“The modelling does show that it is likely to cross the coast and we want people to be as prepared as they can be.”
The Bureau of Meteorology has warned that heavy rainfall will be concentrated to the south of wherever Alfred makes landfall, and that the system could bring 300mm to 600mm over multiple days.
While Brisbane and nearby communities begin to prepare, there is an immediate threat of intense winds and potential storm surge in island communities and along the coast.
Decisions have not yet been made about potential school closures or event cancellations. Crisafulli said the state would provide “information” but that many of these decisions would be left to businesses or sporting associations.
The Brisbane lord mayor, Adrian Schrinner, said many of the city’s residents had never experienced a cyclone before as he stressed the “very real threat” to south-eastern Queensland.
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.
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.
The cyclone watch area spans from K’gari to Grafton, NSW for heavy rain, damaging wind and monster waves.
In NSW, where the northern coastline could be affected, the State Emergency Service urged residents to prepare for damaging winds, large surf and heavy rainfall with major riverine and flash flooding expected from Wednesday.
“We are asking the community to take steps now to ensure that if you are asked to evacuate you have a plan for yourselves, your families and your pets and know where you will go,” NSW SES assistant commissioner Dean Storey said.
NSW’s Northern Rivers is only just getting back on its feet after flooding three years ago that claimed five lives and destroyed homes.
NSW emergency services minister, Jihad Dib, assured locals authorities were doing “everything we can” to prepare for the looming system.
“We’re cognisant of what the Northern Rivers have gone through and some of the trauma that they carry,” he said.
