January. February 251 CYCLONE MARCIA 2015
C5 295km/h*
Cyclone Marcia intensified from a category
2 to a category 5 just before crossing the
Queensland coast north of Rockhampton
in February 2015. With wind gusts of almost
300km/h, it destroyed about 350 homes and
damaged almost 2000 properties in and
around Yeppoon and Rockhampton.
Pre-empting dangerous coastal erosion,
conservation volunteers worked hard to
relocate the nests of loggerhead turtles
higher up the beaches near Bundaberg
before the cyclone made landfall.CYCLONE YASI
(^22011) C5 285km/h
Cyclone Yasi bore down on northern
Queensland with all the strength of a
category 5 system just days after a category
2 had made landfall in the same region.
Hospital patients were evacuated from Cairns
amid fears the city would suffer a direct hit.
But Yasi made landfall near Mission Beach,
140km to the south, causing major damage
to infrastructure and vegetation around Tully.
Yachts in Port Hinchinbrook suffered millions
of dollars of damage. One young man was
killed – he was asphyxiated by fumes while
sheltering inside with his generator.
3 CYCLONE MONICA 2006 C5
360km/h
Cyclone Monica’s powerful wind gusts
wiped out a weather station as it neared the
Top End coast. It moved over fairly remote
regions, causing no deaths or serious injuries,
although Darwin’s ANZAC Day commemora-
tions were cancelled. Even in the hard-hit
Arnhem Land community of Maningrida,
35km from where Monica crossed the coast,
there were no reported losses.
Cyclone Ingrid was unusual in that it caused
widespread damage in two states and a
territory. It crossed Cape York as a category
4; intensified to a category 5 before battering
coastal and island communities along the
NT’s Arnhem Land coast; and crossed WA’s
Kimberley coast as a category 4. Five people
died when large swells capsized their boat
near Kerema, in Papua New Guinea.
CYCLONE INGRID
(^2005) C5 207km/h
4
CYCLONE TRACY
(^61974) C4 217km/h
When Cyclone Tracy struck Darwin on
Christmas morning 1974, it was a catastro-
phe that left little unscathed. With winds of
more than 200km/h, Tracy left more than
half the city’s 43,000 inhabitants homeless.
Within weeks, three-quarters of the entire
population had either chosen to leave or
had been evacuated. Many never returned.
At least 65 lives were lost and Australian
attitudes towards cyclones changed forever.
Cyclone Althea hit Townsville on Christmas
Eve, and was one of the most powerful to
ever hit the city. It claimed three lives,
destroyed at least 200 homes in Townsville,
and damaged most homes on nearby
Magnetic Island. Recommendations from the
damage assessment changed how Queens-
land homes were constructed, forming the
basis for the first state-wide building codes.
CYCLONE ALTHEA
(^71971) C4 196km/h
Cyclone Mahina may have claimed more than
400 lives when it struck Princess Charlotte
Bay on Cape York Peninsula, in March 1899,
making it Australia’s deadliest natural disaster.
Researchers in Queensland have attempted
to change official records stating the storm
reached an intensity of 914 hectopascals
(a measure of central pressure, where low
figures are more severe). They believed the
real figure was 880hPa, putting it among the
world’s most intense cyclones of all time.
CYCLONE MAHINA
1899 C5 Unknown
10
buzz
Striking Mackay, Queensland, in January
1918, Cyclone Mackay was a large system
that caused damage along the coast to
Rockhampton, where 1400 homes were
flooded. About 30 people died as a result.
The railway lines and roads in and around
the town were damaged, isolating it from
the surrounding regions and supplies. It took
residents five days to successfully send word
out to signal the alarm and tell the rest of
Australia what had happened.
CYCLONE MACKAY
(^81918) C5/C4 195km/h
CYCLONE INNISFAIL
(^91918) C5 Unknown
Before 10 March 1918 Innisfail in
Queensland was a town of 3500 people.
After Cyclone Innisfail only 12 houses
remained. It’s thought 37 people died in the
town and possibly another 60 in surrounding
areas. A storm surge in the Bingil Bay/Mission
Beach area swept hundreds of metres inland
leaving debris 7m up in some trees.
5
CYCLONE JOAN
(^1975) C5 208km/h
When Cyclone Joan struck Port Hedland, on
the Pilbara coast, it was one of the strongest
ever to have hit Australia. About 85 per cent
of the houses here were damaged, a hospital
was destroyed, and dozens of caravans were
overturned, which affected the region’s many
itinerant mine workers. One witness recalled
the winds were so strong that small crabs
from the sea were blown in under her door.
Although there was no loss of human life,
graziers suffered heavy losses to livestock.
Cyclone Tracy in 1974 was Australia’s
most signifi cant, killing at least 65
people and devastating Darwin.
KEY
C Category (4 or 5)
Maximum wind gust speed
Estimated speed
OPPOSITE: NASA/MODIS; ABOVE: RICK STEVENS