Tropical Cyclone Kirrily crossing coast near Townsville downgraded to category two system — as it happened (2024)

ABC is your emergency broadcaster and will provide live and continuous coverage on the impacts of Cyclone Kirrily on ABC Radiountil 9pm on Friday, January 26.

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You can find more information, including a map of all the warnings, here.

Thank you for joining our live coverage today.

Stay up to date with our coverage at the link below.

You can find more information with a map of all the warningshere.

Don't forget,ABCis your emergency broadcaster and will provide live and continuous coverage on the impacts of Cyclone Kirrily onABC Radiountil 9pm on Friday, January 26.

You can findABC North QueenslandandABC Tropical Northon the ABC Listen app.

Reporting by Tobi Loftus

Data from Cyclone Kirrily will be used to help us build homes that can better withstand the weather.

Anemometers — which monitor wind — have been set up at six sites around Townsville by researchers from James Cook University's Cyclone Testing Station.

It's the second cyclone this season for the team, who say they haven't been this busy since Cyclone Debbie in 2017.

"We're looking at understanding what the wind load is doing in and around our houses, so we can design better houses, sheds and buildings to resist these wind forces," chief engineer David Henderson says.

"We want to try and learn about the gustiness, the turbulent nature, all those impacts that are on our houses."

Tropical Cyclone Kirrily is tracking generally west-southwest and is crossing just to the northwest of Townsville. It will continue to weaken as it moves inland, the BOM says.

The system is likely to continue tracking inland as a tropical low, resulting in heavy to intense rain and possibly damaging winds to parts of the northern interior and western Queensland.

In the BOM's latest update, it says Cyclone Kirrily has been revised to a category two system.

The weather update says there are sustained winds near the centre of 110kph with wind gusts to 155kph.

The system is estimated to be 55km north of Townsville and 160km south southeast.

Severe Tropical Cyclone Kirrily is making landfall in the Herbert and Lower Burdekin near Townsville, the Bureau of Meteorology says.

Strong westerly winds on the north side of the system are resulting in damaging wind gusts across the North Tropical Coast.

Damaging wind gusts with peak gusts of around 100kph are likely about elevated terrain and valleys in the North Tropical Coast tonight.

Townsville mayor Jenny Hill says they're still in "for quite a long night".

More than 33,00 homes in the region are without power, with Ergon earlier warning that outages would be prolonged, as it was unsafe for their crews to go out.

"[It's] Extensive winds and driving rain at the moment."

"If you are in Townsville, please stay indoors and we will send an emergency alert to the community when wind speeds have dropped to be ok to leave their homes."

Tropical Cyclone Kirrily is crossing the coast just north-west of Townsville as a category three system.

• The system has sustained winds near the centre of 120 kilometres per hour and wind gusts to 165kph.
• It's currently about 30 kilometres north north-west of Townsville
• It's moving west south-west at 25kph and is crossing just to the north-west of Townsville.

ABC reporter Victoria Pengilley says the weather has turned quickly at Bowen, where they're getting gale-force winds.

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Minor flooding is likely late tonight or Friday morning at Gleneagle, Abergowrie Bridge, Ingham, Gairloch and Halifax, according to BOM.

The Herbert River is on flood watch.

Rainfall is expected to increase overnight and into Friday.

Up to 30mm was recorded in the lower parts of the Herbert catchment since 9am today.

We know the storm iscurrently a category three system, but howwideis the storm?

The weather bureau'sPatch Clappsays it's hard to determine the size of the system because it was not a "well organised" cyclone (you can see this in the satellite image Jessica posted below).

But he says at its greatest extent, including the rainbands associated with the storm, "we're talking about hundreds of kilometres".

In terms of the centre of the system? Mr Clapp says it could be up to 100kms wide.

Here's what the category three system looks like from the BOM satellite as it crosses the coast.

And in infrared ...

The weather bureau's Patch Clapp says the destructive eye wall of the storm is beginning to cross the coast.

"Be very cautious of the conditions outside, even if they get the sense it's calmed," he tells ABC Far North's Adam Stephen.

The cyclone warning zone has been updated, with the warning from Mackay to Bowen cancelled, the weather bureau says.

Currently the warning zone includesInnisfail to Bowen, not including Bowen, including Townsville and extending inland to Charters Towers.

Charters Towers residents should seek safe shelter now.

Charters Towers Disaster Management Group says the region will likely be affected by Cyclone Kirrily, which is now crossing the coast.

The town is south-west of Townsville.

"The Charters Towers region is likely to be affected by Tropical Cyclone Kirrily. Damaging winds are likely from midnight. You should warn neighbours, secure belongings and seek safe shelter now."

The cyclone is estimated to be roughly 30kms off the coast of Townsville and it's travelling at 26km/h.

The category three intensity system is producing winds near the centre of 120 kilometres per hour with wind gusts up to 165 kilometres per hour.

The cyclone is expected to weaken as it moves inland.

If you want to know exactly where the cyclone is, the weather bureau says:

Location: within 20 kilometres of 19.0 degrees South 146.9 degrees East, estimated to be 30 kilometres north northeast of Townsville and 340 kilometres northwest of Mackay.

A further 8,000 homes are without power in Burdekin.

There's also outages near Cairns, Charters Towers, Hinchinbrook and Whitsundays.

Our reporter Lily Nothling says it's pelting down in Townsville, where more than20,000 are without power.

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Townsville Hospital and Health Service staff are prepared to stay overnight and emegergency departments will stay open.

Urgent planned care including dialysis, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, endoscopy procedures, and category 1 surgery were all done earlier today, Queensland Health said in a statement.