Insurers are on alert for potential claims from another cyclone that seems to be forming off the coast of Western Australia.
Last week, Tropical Cyclone Veronica hit the Pilbara coast, flooding the region and causing widespread damage. Now, ABC News reports that a tropical low has formed about 500 kilometres north east of Darwin. The low is forecast to move into waters just off Western Australia.
“Over the next few days we’re expecting the system to move west-south-west and slowly develop,” Matt Boterhoven, a senior forecaster at the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM), told ABC News. “By Friday, there’s a moderate chance of it developing into a tropical cyclone. Then on Saturday, there’s a high chance of it reaching tropical cyclone intensity while being over the waters north of the Kimberley coast, over the Browse Basin area.”
Boterhoven also told ABC News that another cyclone so soon after Veronica would potentially be disastrous for the Pilbara coast.
“If this system does develop into a cyclone and does hit the Pilbara coast, the soil is very saturated now because of all the heavy rainfall from Cyclone Veronica, so the flooding will be quite significant,” Boterhoven told ABC News. “We already saw very significant flooding with Veronica, but it would be a lot quicker to flood this time due to the high soil moisture content.
“It’s early days yet, [but] if it does form the environment is quite good, so there’s probably a better-than-an-even chance that it could be a severe tropical cyclone.”
Officials have said that if the low develops into a cyclone, it will be called ‘Wallace.’
