Tropical Cyclone Looms off Northwest Australia
By Jared McWilliams
Kansas City, December 20 (World Weather Inc.) – Tropical Cyclone 02S was located off the northwestern coast of Australia at 2100 GMT today. The storm system will eventually track to the southeast this weekend and make landfall over sparsely-populated and mostly non-agricultural areas in northwestern Australia Sunday. The impact on agriculture will be minimal.
At 2100 GMT, Tropical Cyclone 02S was located near 14.7 south, 113.9 east, which is approximately 430 miles northwest of Port Hedland, 
Western Australia. The storm was moving southwesterly at 3 mph while producing a maximum sustained surface wind speed of up to 40 mph. Wind gusts were reaching 52 mph.
Tropical Cyclone 2S is expected to have very little overall movement during the next several days as it remains well off the coast of Australia. However, the storm will start to drift to the east eventually Thursday before increasing its forward speed and turning more to the east southeast late this week into the weekend. The Tropical Cyclone is expected to make landfall over northwestern Australia Sunday with only a slight amount of intensification expected prior to landfall.
No major crop areas are located over northwestern Australia and the storm system will move inland without much impact. Some heavy rain will occur along the system’s path and some strong wind is likely near the coast where landfall occurs.
The system will dissipate into a post tropical low pressure system over northwestern Australia early next week. There is potential for the low-pressure system to track to the southeast through the heart of the nation to South Australia by mid to late next week. This would potentially increase rainfall over southeastern South Australia and cause some disruption to any lingering winter crop harvesting, but most of the harvest should be complete and rainfall would be limited to a small portion of the region resulting in little impact. Confidence in the storm staying well organized and following this path is very low, but the situation will be closely monitored.
World Weather, Inc. forecasts and comments pertaining to present, past and future weather conditions included in this report constitute the corporation’s judgment as of the date of this report and are subject to change without notice. Comments regarding damage or the impact of weather on agricultural and energy as well as comments made regarding the impact of weather on the commodity and financial markets are the explicit opinions of World Weather, Inc. World Weather, Inc. can not be held responsible for decisions made by users of the Corporation’s information in any business, trade or investment decision.
©2016 World Weather, Inc. Any unauthorized redistribution, duplication or disclosure is prohibited by law and will result in prosecution.