Category 5 tropical cyclone Zelia crossing the Pilbara coast

Australian Community Media

Severe weather expected for parts of Western Australia.

Transcript

00:00Severe Tropical Cyclone Zelia is a Category 5 tropical cyclone that is going to cross

00:05the Pilbara coastline later on Friday with damaging and destructive winds, heavy rain

00:10and flooding.

00:11Let's get into it with the latest updates from Friday morning because there has been

00:15a couple of significant changes compared to what we were looking at yesterday on Thursday

00:20evening.

00:21Here's the radar imagery from this morning neatly showing the eye of the tropical cyclone

00:25here, this little centre where all the rain is wrapping around through the morning hours

00:29with a bit of motion to it as well, currently moving slowly in the south eastwards direction,

00:35it is sitting around about 100km north of Port Hedland, but that number is shrinking

00:39as this system is getting closer to the coast every hour.

00:43We are seeing this approaching parts of the Pilbara area.

00:47So this is the current location of our Severe Tropical Cyclone, it is a Category 5 system.

00:51Just a reminder, Category 5 is the top of the scale, it does not get any worse than

00:56that.

00:57Extremely damaging and destructive winds, widespread rain, flooding and storm surge

01:01are all expected.

01:02We'll zoom out a little bit to see the tropical cyclone warning area which is extensive and

01:06it has expanded since yesterday as well, stretching from Karratha to Wallal Downs on the coast,

01:12now pushing a long way inland through Marble Bar, Tom Price and down towards Newman as

01:16well.

01:17We do expect to see significant weather impacts throughout this area in the next 24 hours.

01:23Let's zoom in a little bit more now and we'll take a closer look at that all important coastal

01:27crossing, which is forecast to happen later today.

01:30There have been a couple of significant shifts in the most recent information which has come

01:34out at 6am Australian Western Time.

01:37Let's play through the forecast track for the next few hours and we'll see it move southwards

01:42towards the coast.

01:43I want to highlight two key changes compared to what we were looking at yesterday evening.

01:48The first is timing.

01:50If you watched yesterday, we were forecasting a crossing of about 6 or 7pm Western Time

01:54this evening.

01:55That has come forward earlier in the day.

01:58Now the crossing is expected to happen in the afternoon, perhaps around 3 or 4 o'clock

02:02this afternoon as it does cross the coast.

02:05The second significant shift compared to yesterday is the location of the crossing.

02:10We are now expecting the category 5 tropical cyclone to cross east of Port Hedland.

02:16Yesterday that was just to the west of Port Hedland, out over here.

02:19Broadly speaking that won't mean a significant shift to the weather.

02:22We still anticipate very heavy rainfall, damaging and destructive winds in Port Hedland itself.

02:28The one shift that could change is storm surge and storm tide, when the sea levels rise much

02:34higher than a usual high tide and flood coastal locations.

02:38Those storm tides are expected to be most significant on the eastern side of the crossing

02:43point, up over this stretch of coast here out towards Pardu.

02:47That means that Port Hedland perhaps won't see as significant a storm tide as it could

02:52have with a western crossing point.

02:55We're going to zoom out and see how this might actually look this afternoon as the cyclone

02:59crosses.

03:00Firstly we're expecting destructive winds near the crossing point.

03:04We could see wind gusts of 300kmh, it's hard to fathom how strong that is, but it can take

03:09out trees, power lines and completely destroy properties and houses.

03:13More broadly speaking we won't see winds that strong across other parts of the Pilbara

03:17but 100-150kmh gusts are possible for many coastal locations which is very strong wind

03:23nonetheless.

03:25Widespread rainfall and the potential for flooding also persists across almost the entire

03:29area with the heaviest falls once again focused on that coastal crossing location.

03:35We do expect some really significant impacts as this crosses around Port Hedland and for

03:39surrounding parts of the Pilbara area including significant flooding through the rivers and

03:44flash flooding anywhere where the heavy rain occurs.

03:47Destructive winds can knock down trees and houses, take out power and cause significant

03:52stress on infrastructure travel and road networks making things very difficult to get around

03:57in that part of the country.

03:59And storm tides and inundation are possible particularly near and east of where the cyclone

04:03crosses where we could see tides much over their normal level flooding coastal areas,

04:09roads and properties.

04:10We're going to take a look now at what we're expecting in the next few days after this

04:14coastal crossing as the tropical cyclone continues to move inland.

04:17You'll see the numbers gradually dropping, 4 and then down to 2 by Saturday morning.

04:23As this tropical cyclone loses connection with the warm waters over the Pilbara coast

04:27it will gradually weaken in the coming days as it moves further and further into Western

04:32Australia, potentially becoming a tropical low again later in the day on Saturday.

04:37But that will still mean some wind and some rain through large areas of the northern interior

04:42and the central gascoyne of Western Australia even as the system slowly weakens through

04:47the course of the weekend.

04:49Finally a look at how much rain we could get with multiple hundred millimetres of rain

04:53expected about and east of Port Hedland.

04:55We've already had 300 millimetres in some locations, that could be over 500 millimetres

05:00by the time we see the weekend arrive.

05:02So lots of wet weather, flooding and destructive winds.

05:05So if you are in this part of the country or you have loved ones in northern WA, please

05:09do make sure they are up to date with the latest warnings, particularly given the changes

05:13we have been seeing this morning.

05:15You can always get the latest warnings and tropical cyclone information on the Bureau's

05:18website and of course throughout a severe weather event like this, do listen to and

05:22follow any advice from your local emergency services and your local authorities.

05:27Thanks for watching, stay safe.

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