Tropical Cyclone Kirrily is considered “most likely” to make landfall as a severe category-three system, causing flooding in large north Queensland cities such as Townsville and Rockhampton.
Queensland emergency services are planning to respond to two disasters: cyclonic winds, followed by flooding rain and tides, according to authorities.
Current tracking maps show it mostly likely to hit around Townsville, between Cardwell and Airlie Beach on Thursday, though it could happen as a weaker storm as early as tonight.
Bureau of meteorology forecaster Miriam Bradbury said residents should expect a range of “widespread, severe impacts”.
“Gales with damaging wind gusts up to 120km/h may develop about the Whitsunday Islands from as early as Wednesday evening and extend to mainland communities between Townsville and St Lawrence overnight Wednesday or Thursday morning,” she said.
“We also have the risk of destructive wind gusts of up to 150km/h.
“Another risk with these systems is the flooding. So that can occur from storm tide, as well as heavy rainfall that comes with these systems.”
Bradbury said the storm’s likely intensity was downgraded overnight, but “at this stage, the most likely scenario is still a category three”.
“This could be a very widespread as well as a very long duration event.”
Another challenge will be the sheer amount of the state affected by the storm. The system is expected to continue moving as a low for several more days after making landfall, bringing flooding rains across central and South East Queensland over the weekend.
The state disaster coordinator deputy commissioner, Shane Chelepy, said they are “effectively planning for two events” – cyclone and flooding.
Emergency services are already deploying across the state to the likely points of need, including Palm Island and Ayr.
But many of them have been working since before Christmas, after tropical cyclone Jasper inundated communities north of Cairns in December. Others worked during bushfires at Stanthorpe and Tara earlier in the year, or during a tornado at the Gold Coast in December.
The Queensland premier, Steven Miles, is heading to far north Queensland Tuesday to tour the communities affected by previous natural disasters.
Miles said he has already alerted the federal emergency management minister, Murray Watt, that Queensland is likely to need additional support from the Commonwealth, due to the expected large size of the event.
“We’ve already initiated conversations with NEMA, so the counterpart at a federal level to see what kind of federal support could be provided,” the emergency services minister for disaster recovery, Nikki Boyd, said.
“We’re very conscious of the fact that we’ve asked a lot of our emergency services over the last few weeks, I was up in Cairns only last week, where we had rural fire volunteers who were returning from the far north.”
Ergon Energy urged north Queenslanders to be prepared to lose power even before the storm makes landfall.
Northern general manager Chris Hooper said storms surges and flooding can knock out underground power lines, and winds and debris take down above ground transmission systems.
“Think about how your household can function without power for a week or more and get your storm kit ready, especially if you rely on powered medical equipment,” he said.
He said Ergon crews would be ready to roll as soon as weather conditions allowed but flooding was likely to impede access to some sites and delay damage assessment, network repairs and power restoration.