Rare Cyclone Menaces Brisbane, Australia, With Damage Already Mounting

Screen grab from Sky News video shows damage
around Brisbane, Australia from Cyclone Alfred.

 A rare cyclone has blasted Brisbane, Australia's third largest city and surrounding cities Friday and Saturday, and it has already caused widespread power outages, flooding, wind damage and storm surges.

A cyclone is exactly the same as a hurricane. It's just what they call hurricanes in Australia.  

Cyclone Alfred has been menacing and damaging parts of eastern Australia for days now.  It has dumped up to 16 inches of rain on some towns. 

Brisbane was last hit by a cyclone in 1974, though there were close misses with such storms in 1990 and 2019.  Technically, Alfred didn't hit Brisbane because its strength fell just below official cyclone intensity before splashing ashore early Saturday local time. 

Video footage showed howling winds swirling past Brisbane high rises, fallen trees and flooded streets. At least 350,000 homes and businesses were without power, and it could take a week or more to get all the electricity back. Numerous houses and cars were damaged by falling trees. 

The storm moved only slowly westward into Brisbane early Saturday local time.   The winds weren't the real problem. The rain was. 

Its slow forward motion raised fears of intense flooding. Up to 16 inches of rain have fallen in parts of New South Wales already. One person is already reporting missing in the floods. Nearly 40 others had been rescued from high water at last report. 

Forecasters warn areas near Brisbane could see an additional 15 inches of rain, which could give some areas a storm total of nearly 30 inches of rain. That's a recipe for major flooding that will remain a threat for days yet.t.

Even though Alfred had moved inland and was weakening, winds in the region gusted to as high as 65 mph Saturday night near Brisbane. 

WEIRD STORM

Cyclone Alfred was weird from the beginning. 

Alfred was one of three cyclones that formed almost simultaneously in the South Pacific in late February.  Usually, you don't have three storms forming from the same large area of disturbed weather, but this was an exception.

The other two cyclones headed off in different directions, but Alfred targeted Australia.  Usually, when a cyclone targets Australia, it makes a beeline for the nation's northern or northeastern coast.

Instead, Alfred meandered slowly southward toward Brisbane. Its slow pace ensured that its battering waves caused extra serious amounts of beach erosion, since storm waves hit the beaches day after day. 

It also ensure heavy rains in eastern Australia for days, causing the extensive flooding. 

It's hard to say whether climate change influenced Cyclone Alfred. It's not the only weird cyclone to ever hit Australia. Odd things just sometimes happen. 

It's possible cyclones might be able to get further south along Australia's coast than they once did.  

Ocean temperatures off of southeastern Australia are usually too chilly to support tropical storms. But climate change is heating up the oceans, which expands the area in which tropical system can survive.

Also, a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture than a cooler one. So it's possible Alfred's rains were a little heavier than they would have been without climate change. 

One more weird thing about Cyclone Alfred. It was supposed to actually be named Cyclone Anthony. 

However, the Prime Minister of Australia is named Anthony Albanese. Australia's Bureau of Meteorology thought it best not to name the storm the same as the prime minister, hence the switcharoo to Alfred. 

Video:

A tour around Brisbane as the worse of Cyclone Alfred hit the city. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that.