Heavy rainfall from Cyclone Alfred – the first to hit southeast Queensland and northern NSW in half a century – will reach as far as Sydney and last for days.
With a warning zone stretching 650km, the ‘slow moving’ but powerful category two system is edging closer towards Brisbane and is expected to cross the coast on Saturday.
But what happens after Alfred makes landfall is concerning some scientists.
‘From modelling, it is expected to move inland over the NSW interior and then possibly move across and pop off the coast around the Sydney area,’ Monash University research fellow Michael Barnes told Daily Mail .
‘It is the rainfall intensity that is key.’
Mr Barnes suggested Sydney and broader NSW will possibly see heavy rainfall of 100mm to 200mm over a 24-to-48 hour period.
‘But the wind intensity will not be cyclone-strength,’ he said.
‘People should not be too panicked about that.’
The Bureau of Meteorology has warned Tropical Cyclone Alfred will ‘substantially influence’ rainfall over March in southeastern Queensland, eastern parts of New South Wales and even as far as Victoria.
Mr Barnes pointed to the case of Cyclone Jasper, a category two system in December 2023 that battered Queensland’s north coast with heavy rains and damaging winds.
‘The remnants sat on Queensland for several days and just rained,’ Mr Barnes said.
‘Once a tropical cyclone makes landfall, it typically loses intensity but it still can remain relatively active, even if weak, for several days.’
Gusts of up to 120km/h developed near the coasts between Cape Moreton and Cape Byron late Thursday which are expected to extend to coastal and island communities between Noosa and Ballina early Friday.
The bureau has forecast widespread, torrential rain across the region over the coming days.
Estimates earlier today went so far as to suggest that, in the space of 24 hours, there would be heavy rainfall totaling up to 450mm, half of which could be dumped over the course of six hours.
The bureau refers to this as intense rainfall that could lead to ‘dangerous and life threatening flash flooding’.
Additionally, the Scenic Rim and Gold Coast Hinterland are predicted to experience roughly 200mm of rain in the space of six hours, reaching around 300mm to 350mm over the course of 24 hours.
The predictions far exceed the average rainfall experienced in Gold Coast during March, with the mean average totaling 155.7mm.
Cyclone Alfred is now less than 150km out from Brisbane and the region is already being hammered by rain and gale force winds.
NSW SES Deputy Commissioner Deb Platts has said it is vital people stay up to date on the latest developments.
She said warning and alerts will continue to rapidly evolve throughout the storm.
‘We need people to keep up to date with the warnings,’ she said on Friday.
‘We’ve seen that overnight where we’ve been able to change some evacuation warnings based on the Bureau of Meteorology’s information and forecasts.’