Chilling out as Owen emerges

Forecasters say chance of rain for region

SMITHFIELD family Pawel and Beata Ronowicz with daughter Bianca, 8, were among the swimmers beating the grip of Queensland’s heatwave at Crystal Cascades yesterday. But a change could be on the way with Cyclone Owen forming in the Coral Sea – the first cyclone of the season.

THE first cyclone of the season has formed over the Coral Sea and begun its gradual journey towards the Far North Queensland coast.

The Bureau of Meteorology upgraded the tropical low to Category 1 Cyclone Owen yesterday afternoon as the weather system sat about 990km offshore.

“The system is likely to drift slowly south until Monday afternoon or evening, and is then expected to turn and move slowly to the west and commence a weakening trend,” BOM said.

“This system poses no immediate threat to the Queensland coast, and should remain well off the coast until it weakens later in the week.”

On current trends, the cyclone is expected to be downgraded back to a tropical low by Tuesday at 4pm, still about 800km away from Cairns.

“The system poses no imA mediate threat to the Queensland community, and should remain well away from the coast until it weakens midweek,” the bureau said.

It is highly likely to lose much of its power, but BOM forecaster David Crock said there was still a chance of much-needed rainfall coming to the Far North.

He said hot temperatures in the mid-30s would remain until the middle of the week, when an onshore southeast flow would bring showers.

Cairns Regional Council Deputy Mayor and Local Disaster Management Group chairman Terry James said preparations were in place for whatever eventuated.

“We’re on alert, so we are just keeping an eye on things at the moment,” he said.

“The alert is what they call a heightened level of vigilance due to the possibility of an event – no action is required at this stage.”

The LDMG held its annual exercise last week with all emergency services agencies at the Cairns Local Disaster Coordination Centre in Woree to run through a fictitious event.

“It keeps everybody up to speed with all of the processes and software so in the event something does break, it’s all on front of our minds,” he said.

Cairns is still expected to hit Level 2 water restrictions this week as Copperlode Dam dips towards 70 per cent capacity.

Cr James hoped any rainfall happened where it was needed.

“It’s much the same every year at this time,” he said.

“We go right to the limit, and then the rain kicks in.

“But we’re not expecting any reasonable rain until lateJanuary or early-February.

“All we can say to people is to be alert and have a look around your yard.”