Cyclone Alfred ‘spun around on itself’, with new tracking maps showing later landfall​on March 6, 2025 at 12:43 am

The Bureau of Meteorology issued its latest cyclone bulletin just before 8am on Thursday, with a new tracking map showing Alfred crossing Moreton Island by 7pm on Friday, before moving into the Brisbane region by 7am on Saturday.

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Premier David Crisafulli urged Queenslanders to use the extra time to continue to prepare their homes, and warned it was still a serious system.

“Overnight it spun around on itself, and it’s still coming into the coast, but that’s been delayed,” he told Nine’s Today show.

“We were speaking about that crossing late tonight into Friday, well, that’s been pushed back well into Friday.”

Alfred had earlier been forecast to make landfall in the early hours of Friday, but by Wednesday night, it had slowed from moving at 11km/h to 7km/h and was 365 kilometres east of Brisbane. By Thursday morning, it was 285 kilometres off the coast.

The cyclone’s landing point was yet to be determined, but a weather bureau’s bulletin had it crossing between Maroochydore on the Sunshine Coast and Coolangatta at the Queensland-NSW border.

The change in the forecast illustrated how erratic cyclones can be, with modelling indicating Alfred could stall off the Queensland coast before making landfall.

The cyclone’s “gust radius” was affecting the Gold Coast on Wednesday night, prompting residents, including a couple with their young baby, to seek shelter at an evacuation centre at Runaway Bay.

The bureau has warned there is a slight chance the cyclone could intensify to a category 3 storm before it makes landfall.

The first cyclone to hit Queensland’s south-east in more than 50 years is set to bring heavy rain, flash flooding, storm surges and destructive wind gusts up to 155km/h.

Alfred could dump 400 millimetres of rain – almost half a year’s worth – over Brisbane in just 24 hours.

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Four million people are in its path and about 20,000 Brisbane properties are at risk of flooding, as well as 5000 on the Sunshine Coast and 6000 on the Gold Coast.

Queensland Treasurer Jim Chalmers said authorities were expecting billions of dollars in damage, as he spoke with chief executives of major insurers to ensure they could process claims after the cyclone hits.

Schools will be closed on Thursday and Friday, public transport has come to a standstill and the federal government has Black Hawk helicopters on standby.

Evacuations at aged care facilities in low-lying areas began on Wednesday, while residents in Brisbane’s flood-prone suburbs were packing their bags to stay with friends and family.

“We don’t go and forcibly drag people out of their homes … police will go around and say to people ‘you need to leave your home now’,” Acting Queensland Police Commissioner Shane Chelepy said.

“Those people who don’t leave their homes … that puts you, your family and us in a really dangerous situation.”

Emergency alerts were issued across the south-east on Wednesday afternoon amid “chaos” at sandbagging sites as many people made last-minute preparations.

The federal government promised to deliver 250,000 extra sandbags on Wednesday to keep up with demand after many queued for hours.

“This is a rare event to have a tropical cyclone in an area that is not classified as part of the tropics,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said.

Earlier in the day, the premier urged people to make as many preparations as possible before it was too late.

“It’s happening. Exactly where, we’ll continue to tighten, exactly how strong and exactly when, they’re the variables, but that window is closing,” Crisafulli said.

“The one thing that is not negotiable, the one that’s been consistent for a long time, is that it is going to cross.”

A refuge centre will open at Brisbane’s RNA Showgrounds in Bowen Hills for people unable to stay with family or friends, but Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner said the safest place for most residents would be at home.

Brisbane’s western suburbs started experiencing power outages on Wednesday, with strong winds bringing trees down over powerlines in Bardon, Mount Coot-tha, Toowong and Brookfield.

Flood releases are likely at Queensland’s Somerset and Wivenhoe dams in the next two days, with several ungated dams already spilling.

Qantas cancelled some flights on Wednesday, Carnival Luminosa’s three-day cruise was called off, and Greyhound bus services from Brisbane were axed.

The cyclone’s impact is also set to be felt interstate, with the warning zone spanning Double Island Point, just south of K’gari, to Grafton in NSW. More than 100 schools have closed in the Northern Rivers region, with locals urged not to panic-buy.

Uncertainty remained around flights in and out of Brisbane, with some airlines cancelling services into Thursday. Gold Coast and Ballina airports closed, but Brisbane Airport remained open.

“Brisbane Airport will continue to operate its terminals as long as airlines schedule flights in and out, for emergency and aero medical services, for defence operations, and while it is safe to do so,” the airport authority said on Wednesday afternoon.

Gold Coast Acting Mayor Donna Gates said management at the city’s airport was hopeful it would reopen on Saturday, depending on the weather.

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