The tropical cyclone witnessed by Queensland in Australia during December and during an El Nino year “is not normal”; such events are becoming unpredictable as well
Photo shared by @AlboMP from his X handle on December 17, showing a flooded Cairns A deluge, brought about by the remnants of Tropical Cyclone Jasper, has caused the largest flood in more than a century in Australia’s Far North Queensland (FNQ). Jasper made landfall last week along the FNQ coast on December 13, 2023.
Two rain gauges recorded over 660 millimetres (26 inches) of rain in just 12 hours in the wake of Jasper, provisionally breaking the previous all-time state record of 617 mm set in 1972.
Non-stop rain led to widespread major flooding along the FNQ coast. The Barron river at Myola experienced its highest flood levels in more than 100 years. The Daintree river exceeded major record flooding levels. It hit 15 metres — above the 2019 record of 12.6 metres.
The Cairns Regional Council’s treatment plants are offline due to the ongoing flooding across the region. Heavy flooding caused a major blockage at the Crystal Cascades intake, which supplies the water treatment plant at Tunnel Hill in Cairns. This has prevented water treatment in recent days.
Treated water supplies in reservoirs have now depleted, Cairns mayor Terry James said in his statement on December 18, 2023. The city’s water supply has reached a critical level, according to James. Some suburbs in Cairns may already be without water due to damaged infrastructure.
Cairns residents have been told to conserve as much water as possible even as work continues to restore water supply. They have been urged to use water only for emergency use. This includes drinking and food preparation, personal hygiene, and medical needs.
November-April is the season of tropical cyclones in the northern parts of Australia. But the wet season gets delayed during El Nino years and begins from January or February. Australia is currently in the grip of an El Nino climate pattern, according to the declaration by the country’s Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) in September 2023.
A tropical cyclone near Queensland so early in December is rare and is even rarer in El Nino years, according to Laura Boekel, a senior meteorologist with the BOM.
This is the first time since records began in the 1970s that a tropical cyclone has arrived so early in the season in an El Nino year, said Boekel in a press conference.
Weather models had shown the remains of Cyclone Jasper moving into the Gulf of Carpentaria, according to Steve Turton, Adjunct Professor of Environmental Geography, CQUniversity Australia. The Gulf divides the Cape York Peninsula of FNQ from the Northern Territory.
But the ex-cyclone stalled just inland from the southeast Gulf of Carpentaria, creating a sweet spot for torrential rain known as a “stationary convergence zone”. This led to non-stop torrential rain for 48 hours, said Turton in an explanation on The Conversation portal.
The BOM had alerted about the Category Two system near Port Douglas, several days prior to its landfall. However, the lead time for the extreme and prolonged rainfall forecast was short, Laura Boekel was quoted as saying in a media report. The extreme weather event thus cheated the early warning system too.
The deluge is likely to be another climate-led disaster for FNQ, with losses likely to be over a billion dollars. It may take months to recover from this devastation. It is a hallmark of what the region may see more of with climate change
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