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Where's the impact. Predicting damage from TCs in sparsely populated areas

Created 16/10/2025

Updated 16/10/2025

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Severe TC Ilsa crossed the Western Australian coastline approximately 120 km east of Port Hedland on Thursday 13 April 2023. Observations at Bedout Island were the highest wind speeds ever recorded on standard BoM instruments (gust wind speed of 289 km/h). In anticipation of the TC, residents in the mining township of Telfer were evacuated, along with a small number of evacuees in other townships (Marble Bar, South Hedland and Nullagine). As a category 5 TC, the threat of widespread destruction was front of mind for emergency managers in Western Australia.

Geoscience Australia (GA) has established the National Hazard Impact and Risk Service (NHIRS), which provides quantitative modelled impact forecast information for tropical cyclones, large-scale wind events and earthquakes in Australia. NHIRS has been used by the Department of Fire and Emergency Services (DFES) Intelligence Unit to support operational resource planning for TC events.

In TC Ilsa, DFES Intelligence (and GA) officers reviewed the impact predictions in the days leading up to landfall. Genuine questions were asked about the level of predicted damage, which was almost negligible across northern WA in spite of the predicted landfall intensity. Why was that the case? Was the service operating as expected? This paper highlights the challenge of educating users on the utility of impact forecasting products and communicating the components that are integrated in the impact forecast.

Presented at the 30th Conference of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (AMOS) 2024

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Additional Info

Field Value
Title Where's the impact. Predicting damage from TCs in sparsely populated areas
Language eng
Licence Not Specified
Landing Page https://data.gov.au/data/en/dataset/3819d124-bf96-4c08-9976-148ce8de5741
Contact Point
Geoscience Australia Data
clientservices@ga.gov.au
Reference Period 31/07/2024
Geospatial Coverage
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors
{
  "coordinates": [
    [
      [
        112.92,
        -54.75
      ],
      [
        159.11,
        -54.75
      ],
      [
        159.11,
        -9.2402
      ],
      [
        112.92,
        -9.2402
      ],
      [
        112.92,
        -54.75
      ]
    ]
  ],
  "type": "Polygon"
}
Data Portal Geoscience Australia

Data Source

This dataset was originally found on Geoscience Australia "Where's the impact. Predicting damage from TCs in sparsely populated areas". Please visit the source to access the original metadata of the dataset:
https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/csw/dataset/wheres-the-impact-predicting-damage-from-tcs-in-sparsely-populated-areas