Tropical Cyclone Alfred inches closer to southeast Queensland and northern NSW
Tropical Cyclone Alfred is inching closer to southeast Queensland and northern NSW following a delayed start, with residents warned to prepare for heavy rainfall, potential flash flooding and wild winds.
Alfred remains a category 2 storm and is now just 185km off the Gold Coast.
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Alfred will likely stay category 2 until affecting the Moreton Bay islands before then decreasing in intensity to a category 1 when it moves closer to the mainland.
Despite the change in intensity, impacts from the cyclone will remain just as serious, the Bureau of Meteorology said.
“The risk of significant impacts due to widespread heavy rainfall is expected to continue near the coast and extend over adjacent inland areas during the weekend,” it said.
Flooding, damaging winds hit coastal areas
Major riverine flooding is expected across Queensland’s southeast and the Northern Rivers in NSW, with Lismore once again on watch after the community was devastated by floods in 2022.
Damaging winds up to 120km/h per hour are occurring near the coast between Cape Moreton and Cape Byron, BOM said.
These winds are expected to extend to the rest of the southeast Queensland and northeastern New South Wales coastal and island communities between Noosa and Ballina on Friday.
They may even reach as far south as Grafton and as far north as Double Island Point on Friday evening and early Saturday, BOM said.
Destructive wind gusts of up to 155km/h per hour are likely to develop near coastal and island locations close to and south of Alfred’s centre as it approaches the coast during Friday afternoon.
These gusts will stick around until Alfred crosses the coast late Friday evening or early Saturday.
“Abnormally high tides are likely to continue causing minor flooding of coastal low-lying areas between Double Island Point and Grafton, particularly during the Friday night (early Saturday) high tide,” BOM said.
Over the past few days waves up to 15m have been recorded along the southeast Queensland coast.
Up to 30,000 homes are without power in the cyclone zone.
NSW SES has already received more than 6300 calls and responded to more than 3400 incidents.
Three of these incidents were flood rescues.
A number of evacuation orders were issued on Thursday afternoon and throughout the night in communities on the Mid-North Coast and Northern Rivers.
Originally published on 7NEWS
