Tropical Cyclone Glenda—the second major storm to hit Australia in ten days—came ashore late on Thursday local time.
The Category Four tempest lashed towns along the northwest coast with winds reaching 145 miles an hour (235 kilometers an hour).
The cyclone's eye passed over the small town of Onslow, about 900 miles (1,450 kilometers) north of Perth (see map).
Onslow is known locally as cyclone city, having been hit by four major cyclones in the past 80 years.
Glenda made landfall as a Category Four storm, the second most powerful classification on the Saffir-Simpson intensity scale.
Cyclone Larry, a Category Five storm, devastated towns and crops along Australia's northeastern coast last week with winds of up to 180 miles an hour (290 kilometers an hour). (Read the related news article.)
Before Glenda crossed the coast, Bruce Buckley, a senior forecaster with the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, had said the storm could potentially reach the same intensity as Larry.
"The difference [between Glenda and Larry] is minuscule," he said.
"We've got Glenda as a very high Category Four, and analysis shows Larry was a very high Four or low Category Five when it crossed, so they are definitely in the same ballpark.
"Glenda is probably a slightly larger cyclone in terms of the physical size of it," he added.
Be Prepared
Glenda is the sixth cyclone of West Australia's cyclone season, which runs between November and April.
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