Western Australia braced for Severe Tropical Cyclone Lua
At the end of last week, I tweeted that it looked like a tropical cyclone would develop this week to the north of Australia. As expected, one has developed and has been named Lua.
The Australian Bureau of Meteorology has classified Lua as a severe category three tropical cyclone. It’s forecast to strengthen briefly to a category four storm, before slamming into the north coast of Western Australia during Saturday.
For the past three days, the storm has been drifting around across the Indian Ocean, drawing energy from the warm tropical waters and gradually growing stronger.
On Wednesday some companies were forced to close their offshore oilfields as Lua passed nearby, stopping production of around a quarter of Australia’s oil production.
The latest forecast track takes the storm onto the east Pilbara coast with sustained winds of 100mph and even stronger gusts of more than 120mph.
Warnings have been issued for destructive winds between Whim Creek and Bidyadanga after sunrise on Saturday, subsequently extending to inland parts of eastern Pilbara later in the day.
As well as damaging winds, heavy rainfall is expected, with some weather computer models suggesting that 50-100mm, locally more could fall in the next three days.
With the rain likely to be intense, there is a significant risk of flooding – especially for coastal areas, where a very dangerous storm tide is expected as the tropical cyclone approaches.
After making landfall, Lua will start to weaken as the supply of energy from the warm ocean waters is cut off.
Nevertheless, rain and gales will continue to spread southwards across parts of Western Australia into the early part of next week.
Northern Queensland is also likely to see some heavy rainfall over the next couple of days as an area of low pressure drifts eastwards from the Gulf of Carpentaria.
Whilst not a tropical cyclone, the slow moving nature of this low pressure system will mean that the persistence of the rain could cause flooding problems into the early part of next week.
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Image courtesy of CIMSS