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Photo by Yulia Riding on Unsplash

In early March, I found myself in the path of Australia’s Tropical Cyclone Alfred —an unusual and erratic cyclone that made history as the first in 50 years to make landfall as far south as the New South Wales–Queensland border.

There is quite a lot to unpack after experiencing your first extreme weather event, especially one that broke records as Alfred did. However, a few weeks later, any stress it induced has given way to renewed resolve to drive forward climate action.

Australia and Extreme Weather

Australia is no stranger to extreme weather events such as floods, heatwaves, bushfires, dust storms, cyclones and more. Right now, heavy floods in Queensland are shaping up to be among the region’s worst on record, and it’s hard to forget the 2019-2020 bushfire season which brought unprecedented levels of destruction and burnt 5.5 million hectares of land.

For the last few months I’ve been living in a slightly battered van in Byron Bay, New South Wales. It is truly beautiful here; the waters are warm and crystal clear, the sand on the beach is so clean it squeaks underfoot, and the biodiversity is rich.

In late February, during my usual morning news scroll, I saw an article about a cyclone system that had formed over the Northern Coral Sea and was gradually moving east. At this point, I didn’t think much of it; the system was forecast to stay offshore and cyclones in this area typically tail off over the ocean anyway.

An Unexpected Turn

On February 23rd, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology named the cyclone system Tropical Cyclone Alfred (originally Anthony but changed to avoid confusion with the Australian Prime Minister). Over the course of the next week, Alfred meandered south and gradually weakened, however, on March 4th it intensified and made an unexpected sharp turn towards land.

At this point I was a little more concerned. Extreme weather alerts lit up my phone and I hastily booked myself into an Airbnb for a few nights. Here I was met with a stern warning from my host that I needed to be a bit more prepared for what was to come. Apparently, a few years ago the building’s roof was blown off in strong winds, and the Byron Bay area had a history of flooding. That night marked the beginning of six days of the heaviest rain and strongest winds I have ever experienced.

Alfred’s Widespread Impact

The weak winds steering Tropical Cyclone Alfred meant it moved slowly toward the coastline and didn’t make landfall until it had declined in intensity. While this sounds positive, Alfred’s slow pace prolonged its impacts. Power outages and drops in phone service began almost immediately after the first strong gusts and didn’t resolve in my area until March 8th. This meant no running water (flushing the toilet with a bucket of rainwater was a low point), no cooking equipment, no means to store food and no access to the outside world.

Alfred brought substantial and widespread impacts across New South Wales and Queensland. Nearly 450,000 homes and businesses across both states spent days without power, marking the largest number of power outages ever in Queensland. Southern Queensland saw some of its highest levels of rainfall in decades, with Brisbane receiving what would usually be around two months’ worth of precipitation in under 24 hours. Such heavy rainfall overwhelmed urban drainage systems and caused rivers to exceed containment thresholds, resulting in major flooding and prompting evacuations in low-lying areas. Byron Bay saw significant flooding too.

Alfred also coincided with one of the year’s highest tides, causing substantial coastal erosion along approximately 500 kilometres of coastline. In some areas, beach erosion was so extreme it carved ledges in the sand up to six meters high.

The Australian government predicted that Cyclone Alfred would have a A$1.2 billion impact on GDP, halt growth, and put pressure on inflation. That figure is staggering, but not surprising given the damage the cyclone left behind. Roads were blocked by debris and fallen trees, countless businesses lost their stock, houses and infrastructure were destroyed, beaches and forests were damaged, and thousands of aquatic animals washed ashore dead as floods depleted oxygen levels in the water.

The Climate Change Connection

While we can’t say that climate change caused Tropical Cyclone Alfred, since extreme weather events occur naturally in our weather system, scientists agree that climate change influenced the storm’s behaviour. We know that climate change is causing temperatures to rise; sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the Coral Sea reached record highs in 2024, and monthly SSTs in the Australian region have been the warmest on record for each respective month since October 2024.

A cyclone that formed like Alfred would usually have dissipated over the ocean, but it instead reformed off the coast of Brisbane. While we can’t say with certainty that these elevated SSTs pushed Alfred so far south, we do know they provided the necessary conditions for it to regain intensity as it did. In addition, high ocean and air temperatures meant that Alfred produced more rainfall than a typical category 2 cyclone, while sea level rise increased the impacts of storm surges, erosion, and coastal flooding.

Returning to ‘Normal’

It has taken a few weeks, but everything is feeling normal again here. Debris has been removed, buildings repaired, the water is clear, and excavators have returned beaches to their usual form. I came away unscathed from Tropical Cyclone Alfred, but events like this do have the power to dramatically alter people’s lives, impact communities and cause lasting damage to ecosystems.

As the Earth’s temperature rises, so does the frequency and severity of extreme weather events. These events do more than damage physical environments—they deepen existing inequalities. Vulnerable individuals, communities and nations will not only bear the heaviest consequences of climate change but will have fewer resources to rebuild following instances of extreme weather.

At the Carbon Literacy Project, we believe that education and awareness are the foundation of climate resilience. Carbon Literacy equips individuals, organisations and communities with the knowledge and tools necessary to take meaningful climate action, so that we can collectively address climate change. The time to act is now.