Rare cyclone weakens to a tropical low weather system as it approaches the Australian east coast

BRISBANE, Australia — A tropical cyclone weakened into a tropical low weather system on Saturday as it approached Brisbane, Australia’s third-most populous city, bringing flooding rain that was expected to lash the coastal region for days.

Tropical Cyclone Alfred had been expected to become on Saturday the first cyclone to cross the east Australian coast near the Queensland state capital since 1974.

But it weakened early Saturday to a tropical low, which is defined as carrying sustained winds of less than 63 kph .

The system was expected to cross the coast north of Brisbane between Bribie Island and the Sunshine Coast region later Saturday, Bureau of Meteorology manager Matt Collopy said.

“Heavy-to-locally intense rainfall leading to flash and riverine flooding now becomes the major concern as the ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred moves inland,“ Collopy said.

Cyclones are common in Queensland’s tropical north but are rare in the state’s temperate and densely populated southeast corner that borders New South Wales state.

A 61-year-old man remained missing after being swept away in a flooded river near the town of Dorrigo in New South Wales and a woman sustained minor injuries when an apartment building lost its roof at the Queensland border city of Gold Coast on Friday, police said. The woman was one of 21 people who were evacuated from the building.

More than 330,000 homes and businesses lost power on both sides of the border, a large proportion of them at Gold Coast, which recorded the strongest gusts of 107 kph on Friday night.

Of those, 291,000 premises were in Queensland, including 131,000 at Gold Coast, officials said. Another 45,000 were without power in New South Wales, they said.

Power lines, homes and cars were damaged by falling trees across the region over Friday night.

A Brazilian couple, who gave their names as Natalie and Pedro, visited Gold Coast’s Narrowneck Beach on of the edge of the Surfers Paradise tourist precinct on Saturday to contact their families. Telephone reception has been a casualty of electricity outages.

They found limited signal at Narrowneck.

“Just a little bit. At least we could tell out families we’re all right,” Natalie told the .

They also came to survey the damage.

The Gold Coast’s renowned broad beaches have become steep sandy cliffs several meters high after days of relentless erosion.

“We’ve never seen such weather at the coast,” said Pedro, who has lived at Gold Coast for eight years. Queensland officials grateful storm damage isn’t worse

Queensland Premier David Crisafulli said he was grateful the risk had passed of the storm crossing the coast at high tide, which would have flooded coastal homes.

“To have no homes reported … that have had storm tide inundation is really a tremendous, tremendous result,” he said.

Rivers were flooding in Queensland and New South Wales after days of heavy rain, the meteorology bureau said. The missing man was the only failure among 29 flood rescues carried out by emergency teams in northern New South Wales in recent days, most involving vehicles attempting to cross floodwaters, police said.

The Sunshine Coast, a local government area popular with tourists 100 kilometers north of the Brisbane city center, was preparing for increasing rain late Saturday and the associated risks of sudden flooding as the weather system approached, Mayor Rosanna Natoli said. Meteorologists say it is unusual for Brisbane to be threatened by a tropical cyclone

It’s unusual, but not unprecedented for a tropical cyclone such as Alfred to threaten the general Brisbane area, tropical meteorologists said.

Several weak storms brushed near the area in the 1970s, another in 1990, and one came somewhat near in the 2010s, said Colorado State University’s Phil Klotzbach and University at Albany’s Kristen Corbosiero.

No hurricane-strength cyclones have tracked within 80 kilometers of Brisbane on record, Klotzbach said.

The biggest concern with Ex-Tropical Cylone Alfred is rain because the steering currents aren’t moving the storm along much so it can just sit in one place and pour down, like 2017’s Hurricane Harvey did to Houston, Texas, Corbosiero said.

McGuirk reported from Melbourne, Australia. Associated Press writer Charlotte Graham-McLay contributed from Wellington, New Zealand, and science writer Seth Borenstein from Washington, D.C.