Australian Weather

27 Feb 2025, 11:35PM UTC

Severe Tropical Cyclone Alfred is a Category 3 system this Friday morning, after becoming as strong as Category 4 on Thursday night. The good news – for now – is that it remains well offshore. At 4 am Friday (AEST), it was located over the Coral Sea about 750 km east northeast of Mackay and 770 km northeast of Rockhampton. The BoM said early on Friday morning that “there is increasing confidence that Alfred will stay offshore. However, Alfred is likely to be slow moving next week with some ongoing uncertainty as to how close to the southern Queensland coast it may come.”  Image: A four-hour satellite loop in the early hours of Friday morning, February 28, showing Severe Tropical Cyclone Alfred to the east of Qld. Earlier this week, Weatherzone meteorologist Ben Domensino wrote that it was not possible at that stage to know if Alfred will eventually cross the Queensland coast, and if it does, whether it will be a tropical cyclone or a weaker low pressure system. It has since become clearer that Alfred will track close enough to the coast for its impacts to be felt, with gales and huge swells expected along parts of Australia’s east coast, as Weatherzone meteorologist Felix Levesque explained on Thursday. In its Friday statement, the BoM added that “regardless of the track Alfred takes, severe coastal hazards are likely for southern Queensland and northeast New South Wales. “A large and powerful to potentially damaging easterly swell as well as abnormally high tides are forecast to develop about southern Queensland beaches from Friday and especially during Saturday, extending to northern New South Wales from Sunday or Monday.” At this stage, Tropical Cyclone Alfred is expected to remain off Australia’s east coast as it slowly moves towards the south over the coming days. While a coastal crossing appears unlikely, the anticipated slow movement of Alfred in the coming days makes its future track more difficult to predict. Image: Satellite and tropical cyclone forecast track on the Weatherzone app, showing Tropical Cyclone Alfred's predicted future track. Valid at 9:35 am AEST on February 28, 2025. Please check the latest cyclone advisories and weather warnings for the most up-to-date information and be sure to stay on the Weatherzone news feed into the weekend and the new week for more TC Alfred updates.

27 Feb 2025, 4:08AM UTC

Autumn is almost upon us, but no one told the Central Australian weather gods, where an ongoing heatwave will likely generate the hottest autumn temperature in Alice Springs since records began at the current site in 1940. This Saturday, March 1, Alice Springs is predicted to reach a maximum of 43°C and may even go as high as 44°C. The previous hottest day in March (or any autumn month) was 42.7°C in 2019. The average March maximum for Alice Springs is 32.7°C. Image: Pink represents areas with maximums of 44°C or higher expected this Saturday, March 1. Alice Springs is rightly known as a hot place, with an annual average maximum (spread across all 12 months) of 28.9°C. But interestingly, it’s not as hot as many other outback locations due to its elevation. Alice Springs sits at around 570m, which is almost exactly the same height above sea level as downtown Canberra. To illustrate the difference that even a few hundred metres of elevation makes: While Alice Springs can expect a top of 43°C or possibly 44°C this Saturday, Oodnadatta (elevation 121m) is going for 45° while Birdsville (elevation 46m) in southwest Qld will likely hit 46°C. The hottest temp on record at the current site in Alice Springs was "only" 45.7°C, while Birdsville has reached 49.4°C and Oodnadatta jointly holds the Australian record of 50.7°. Image: 28-day max temps for Alice Springs, which you can find on the Weatherzone app.  Why such hot late summer/early autumn weather for Central Australia? Any time the weather is very stable in the summer months, heat builds up over Australia’s interior with no way of dissipating. Over the last week or more, any cool changes which have affected southern parts of the continent haven't penetrated anywhere near far enough northwards to cause so much as a wind change in the outback, let alone an influx of cooler air. Ex-Tropical Cyclone Bianca off the WA coastline also played a part. While the cyclone never impacted the Australian coastline, its presence helped stabilise the upper ridge over Central Australia. Image: Saturday’s synoptic chart shows a similar weather pattern to that which we’ve seen all week, with heat built up across a vast area of the country’s interior. Meanwhile the outback heat (which is classified as a heatwave) will continue well into next week, and while temps will be a couple of degrees lower from Monday onwards, all three towns mentioned above can still expect maximums of 40°C or higher for much of the week. As for those of us in the more populated parts of Australia, the worst of the outback heat will stay well inland without affecting capital cities too much – as has been the case for most of this week. Western Sydney will come close to 40°C on the last day of the 2024/25 summer this Friday, but temperatures in the rest of the Sydney region will peak in the mid-30s or slightly lower.