Australia Braces for More Wild Weather in Wake of Ex-Tropical Cyclone Kirrily

Article

Ex-Tropical Cyclone Kirrily has uprooted trees and felled powerlines in Australia’s Queensland state, leaving tens of thousands without electricity or phone service as the state braces for further wild weather into the weekend.

The storm has weakened to a tropical low, but is expected to bring heavy to intense rain and possible damaging winds to parts of the northern interior and western Queensland as it tracks further inland Friday and over the weekend, according to an update from the Bureau of Meteorology. Long term, the remnants of Kirrily are likely to move across the Northern Territory and into northern Western Australia, the bureau said.

Kirrily made landfall on Thursday evening as a Category 3 system, making it the biggest cyclone to hit the Queensland coast in almost five years.

Cyclone Kirrily Makes Landfall in Australia as Severe Storm

There had been minimal injuries and damage so far as a result of the storm, while 64,000 households were without power as of Friday morning, Queensland Premier Steven Miles told a news conference, adding that people across the state were waking with a sense of relief.

“Yesterday we said we were preparing for the worst but hoping for the best, and largely that seems to be what has happened,” he said.

The state is still recovering from the widespread flooding that was unleashed by Tropical Cyclone Jasper last month, which inundated homes in the far north and damaged sugar crops. With the arrival of Kirrily, it’s the first time that two systems have hit Queensland weeks apart since 2015. The country’s cyclone season typically runs from November to April.

“We’re not out of the woods yet, because you’ll remember not that long ago, we had Cyclone Jasper further north in far north Queensland and there it wasn’t so much the cyclone that caused the damage but the flooding that followed it,” Federal Agriculture Minister Murray Watt said in a televised interview.

“Today we’ll get a better sense of the damage,” he said.

Kirrily has prompted the closure of ports and flight cancellations, with resorts and hotels across the tourism hotspot evacuating guests. The cyclone could impact sugar crops, mango, pineapple, avocado, chicken and dairy farmers in the region, according to the Queensland Farmers’ Federation. The state accounts for about 95% of Australia’s sugar output.

Residents of Townsville, Australia are seen preparing their homes for the on-coming cyclone on Jan. 25, 2024. Photo credit: Ian Hitchcock/Getty Images.