Cyclone Glenda Lands on NW Aussie Coast

Stephanie Peatling in Sydney
for National Geographic News

March 30, 2006

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.

In preparation for Glenda's arrival, hundreds of people had fled their homes to take refuge in evacuation centers along West Australia's Pilbara coast.

About 160 residents and tourists gathered in a temporary evacuation center set up inside a local school in Karratha, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) from Onslow.

Karratha, one of the region's more populous towns, was spared a direct hit by the storm.

As the tempest neared the coast, people who had not already left were warned it would be safer to stay inside their homes than to venture into the rapidly intensifying wind and rain.

At the time towns were already coping with flooding after the cyclone pelted the area with more than 3.5 inches (90 millimeters) of rain in 24 hours.

The Fire and Emergency Services Authority of Western Australia officially placed towns in the area on red alert and told residents it was too dangerous to go outside.

"We are asking people to stay indoors and to seek shelter," the authority's operations area manager, Jim Cahill, said at the time.

"The cyclone is basically very close and there are extreme winds and a lot of danger. If people haven't evacuated by now, it's probably a bit late.''

Suspended Production

While Larry decimated the northeast's banana and sugar cane industries, Glenda put the northwest's mining and energy industries on hold.

Global mining giant Rio Tinto stopped its iron ore shipping operations in the region ahead of the storm.

Oil and gas company Woodside stopped onshore and offshore production in the area, including its 100,000-barrel-a-day Cossack Pioneer oil field.

Australia's Prime Minister, John Howard, yesterday promised the same assistance to people affected by Glenda as those who were struck by Larry.

This includes payments to help meet immediate expenses, business loans, and help with fuel costs for people who need to run their own generators.

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