Severe Tropical Cyclone Maila on track to hit far north Queensland three weeks after Narelle tore through | Australia weather
Another cyclone could hit the Queensland coast three weeks after the same region was ripped through by Severe Tropical Cyclone Narelle, the Bureau of Meteorology has said.
But forecasts predicting the path and strength of Severe Tropical Cyclone Maila remain uncertain and the storm is likely to make landfall by the weekend, a meteorologist has warned.
Maila was circling an area of the Solomon Sea about 590 kilometers west of Honiara in the Solomon Islands on Monday morning. Classified as a Category 3 system, it was producing wind gusts of up to 185 kilometers per hour with sustained winds of 130 kilometers per hour.
The storm is expected to have spent its final days circling between Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, but is expected to turn southwest and move towards the Queensland coast by midweek.
The Bureau’s Helen Reid said the most likely scenario was for Maila to cross the Cape York coast at the weekend, but warned it was too early to be certain and the storm could change direction and move away from the coast.
“The jury is still out on that, but it looks like it will move towards the coastline of the peninsula over the weekend,” Reid said.
He said there was a possibility Maila could hit the same area affected by Severe Tropical Cyclone Narelle last month and would likely make landfall at Cape York.
He said it could also swing southwards and hit more populated areas such as Cairns or Townsville, or miss the coast entirely.
Narelle, the strongest storm this season so far, made landfall at Cape York as a Category 4 system on March 20, tearing the remote region into a massive swath.
It made landfall twice more, in the Northern Territory and then in Western Australia; It was the first storm to do so in 21 years.
Reid said it is unclear how strong Maila will be when it makes landfall, but it is expected to strengthen to category 4 and then return to category 3 in the coming days.
He said it could pass the coast as a category 4 severe hurricane, meaning sustained wind speeds of 160 to 199 km/h.
“We’ll be watching it very closely, but it could still be another severe tropical cyclone at this stage,” he said.
Reid said that the warm seas that make Narelle so strong also nourish Maila.
“He didn’t have a chance to cool down. Narelle wasn’t that long ago,” he said.
“There’s still plenty of energy in that hot water.”
The last April cyclone to cross the Queensland coast was Severe Tropical Cyclone Ita in 2014. It made landfall near Cooktown in northern Queensland.
