Cyclone Zelia live updates: Category four system crosses Pilbara coast near Port Hedland

The eye of the storm hit De Grey, a remote area about 75km east of Port Hedland.

Mark Bettini, who manages the De Grey station, told the Country Hour he and his father were sheltering in his house with the shutters down, while four others were in the main homestead, which has thick mudbrick walls.

While the area is sparsely populated, several Aboriginal communities are near the path of the cyclone, which is gradually weakening as it tracks south.

WA’s north-west coast between Broome and Exmouth is Australia’s most cyclone-prone area.

Cyclone Ilsa was the most recent category 5 system to cross the WA coast, in April 2023, flattening Pardoo Station in the Pilbara.

TC Ilsa packed a punch, setting a new Australian 10-minute sustained wind speed record of 218kpm, with gusts hitting 289kph for three seconds during the storm.

The most powerful cyclones to impact WA in recent years include:

TC of the lotus

In April 2021 tc seroja strengthened into a category 3 system, before impacting the state’s Mid-West region, unusually far south for a coastal crossing.

The holiday town of Kalbarri was hit the hardestwith homes and businesses destroyed, leaving an estimated $400 million damage bill.

TC Damien

TC Damien made landfall as a category 3 system in February 2020, with the eye of the storm moving directly over Karratha.

There was extensive damage to vegetation and some damage to property, including Karratha Airport.

TC Veronica

In March 2019, TC Veronica reached category 5 intensity north of WA and while it didn’t cross the Pilbara coast, it caused significant disruption to the mining and offshore oil and gas industriesas well as damage to infrastructure.

Total losses were estimated at around $2 billion, making Veronica one of WA’s costliest weather events.

Staff at Fortescue’s Club Hamilton mining village, near Port Hedland, are bunkered down in their dongas with everything they need to ride out the wild weather.

A donga is a bit like a small apartment with a bed, bathroom, television and wifi access.

It’s not clear exactly how many people are there right now but the village has around 1,000 rooms.

Workers usually sleep there between long shifts at the mine but right now, they’re locked down due to the cyclone.

They’ve been given enough food to last 36 hours.

While it’s relatively rare for cyclones to strengthen to a category five level, BOM environmental prediction services manager Matthew Collopy said research into climate and the warming of waters has shown it could become more common.

“The early indications are that there’s not a big impact on frequency, but there is a potential impact on intensity,” he said.

“So there is potentially a higher chance of seeing high category cyclones because of that high temperatures both in the water as well as the atmosphere.”

BOM has downgraded the intensity of the cyclone to a category four now it’s made landfall near the De Grey River mouth, northeast of Port Hedland.

The system had sustained winds near the centre of 195kph, with wind gusts up to 270kph.

TC Zelia will now track south over land and gradually weaken.

BOM said it’s expected to be a category one system when it reaches the inland Pilbara town of Newman.

Here’s the latest track map showing where it’s heading:

Two ADF heavy lift fixed-wing aircraft will arrive in WA tomorrow to assist the Department of Fire and Emergency Services as TC Zelia moves through the Pilbara region.

DFES Commissioner Darren Klemm says the aircraft will boost the eight or nine currently on standby.

The two ADF planes can help with hauling heavy equipment or food supplies.

Two incident management teams are also on standby in other states, as well as urban search and rescue teams.

There are a number of Indigenous communities dotted around the Pilbara area that could be impacted by TC Zeila, including Yandeyarra, Jinparinya and Marta Marta.

DFES Commissioner Darren Klemm says all at-risk communities were visited or contacted on Thursday.

“Some had already evacuated to the centres in Port Hedland or Karratha [while] others decided to remain … but we are in constant contact [with them],” he says.

The BOM says the system is producing very heavy rainfallwith totals of between 200 and 300 millimetres expected over the next 24 hours

Up to 500mm could fall over three days.

But there’s some relief for residents of Port Hedland.

DFES Commissioner Darren Klemm says despite the danger and strength of the system, things are probably not as bad as they could have been.

“We know that with the passage of the cyclone to the east of Port Hedland, that perhaps we may not get the damage that we anticipated four or five hours ago,” he says.

Emergency services have already received 37 calls for assistance across the Pilbara over the past two days.

And the danger won’t stop when the system passes, the BOM is warning.

“Conditions after a cyclone can be just as dangerous as the cyclone itself,” Commissioner Klemm says.

The category five cyclone is crossing the coast just to the east of Port Hedland, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.

The cyclone is bringing very destructive wind gusts of up to 290kph and intense rainfall.

The bureau is warning of a dangerous storm surge that could cause flash flooding to the east of the cyclone’s path.

We’ve been asking the region’s mining giants about the impact of TC Zelia on their operations.

Rio Tinto’s Cape Lambert port is closedas is its salt operations in Dampier and Port Hedland.

Rio is already playing catch-up after flooding caused by Cyclone Sean damaged a railcar dumper at its East Intercourse Island operation less than a month ago, impacting its first quarter shipments.

A spokesperson for Fortescue confirmed the miner’s Port Hedland and Iron Bridge operations have been closedwith staff told to take shelter at camp villages or at home.

It has also suspended non-essential travel to its Pilbara operations.

The Pilbara is often referred to as the “engine room” of Australia’s economy because of the sheer number of mines dotted around the region.

Mining giants such as BHP and Fortescue send iron ore to the Port Hedland port, where it’s loaded onto ships and exported all over the world.

But all that activity has ground to a halt due to TC Zelia.

The Port Hedland facility has been closed since Wednesdaywhile the ports of Dampier and Varanus Island were shut on Thursday.

Pilbara Ports isn’t putting a dollar figure on the impact of shutting down, but given it’s the world’s largest export point for iron ore, any extended closure is likely to be costly and potentially disruptive to the global supply chain.

The Bureau of Meteorology has just published its latest cyclone tracking map, showing Zelia to the east of Port Hedland.

It’s expected to cross the coast as a category five system within the hour.

The Country Hour has been talking to Mark Bettini from De Grey Station, about 80 kilometres east of Port Hedland.

Looking out his laundry window, Mark can see “a helluva lot of water” right now.

“We’ve had so much rain … nearly 600 millimetres since all this started and it’s still teeming down,” he says.

“The wind is starting to pick up [and] the gum trees are bowing a bit.”

With wind gusts forecast to reach up to 285 kilometres per hourMark is worried about falling trees and the welfare of his livestock.

“It’s pretty scary when you say those sort of numbers,” he says.

“The risk [for them] is hypothermia and exposure.”

Mark and his dad are sheltering in his house with the shutters down, while four others are in the main homestead, which has thick mudbrick walls.

That building lost its roof during Cyclone George in 2007 but Mark is confident it will survive TC Zelia.

“If things do start to turn nasty, we’ll just have to hide as best we can,” he says.

The BOM has warned landfall is imminentwith TC Zelia about to cross the coast near DeGrey River mouth, east of Port Hedland.

The town of Port Hedland is expected to avoid the core of the cyclone, but is still likely to be hit by destructive winds this afternoon.

Destructive wind gusts of up to 290kph are likely close to the centre of the cyclone as it crosses the coast, but Port Hedland lies outside this region.

Thankfully, category five cyclones are relatively rare, occurring once every five years or so.

WA’s last category five cyclone to make landfall was Ilsa in 2023.

But when they do hit, they pack a big punch, with winds of more than 280kph.

You can continue reading this story here:

The category five cyclone is gathering strength as it approaches the Pilbara coast, about 1,600km north of Perth.

Emergency warnings are in place for communities covering an area from Pardoo Roadhouse to Whim Creek, and inland west of Marble Bar.

My name is Andrea Mayes and I’ll be with you as the cyclone nears the coast.

This is the latest map from the Bureau of Meteorology, showing the forecast track of the cyclone: