Aaron Bunch Journalist with Australian Associated Press | Collection of published work | + 61 484 008 119 | abunch@aap.com.au
Cyclone Penny heading back to Queensland
Cyclone Penny looks set to return to Queensland but is likely to weaken into a tropical low packing pockets of heavy rain to the tropical north coast.
January 5, 2019
Five days after its News Years Day lashing of far north Queensland, tropical cyclone Penny looks set to make a U-turn back towards land.
The weather system redeveloped into a category two cyclone after it crossed Cape York Peninsula early on Wednesday but has been losing strength and is currently category one.
It’s currently about 1000 kilometres northeast of Townsville and is expected to turn west late on Saturday, the Bureau of Meteorology says.
However, the system is forecast to become a tropical low as it slowly moves towards the northeast tropical coast.
“It could still deliver some pockets of heavy rainfall about the Herbert and Lower Burdekin and north tropical coast areas, but it’s hard to be certain until it gets a bit closer,” meteorologist Gordon Banks told AAP.
“They’ve had recent floods so any further rainfall and the rivers could come up quite quickly.”
Penny made landfall near Weipa on Tuesday as a category one cyclone, with wind gusts up to 120 km/h recorded on the west of the peninsula.
It’s remained slow-moving since it crossed Queensland and moved into the Coral Sea late on Wednesday.
“It has been moving east but we suspect it’s about to come back to the west again – like a yo-yo,” Mr Banks said.
“We’ve had a few visits from Penny, she does seem to be wandering around looking for a home.”