The Saint #42: Tropical Cyclones
Townsville is characterised as a tropical savanna climate. Owing to a quirk of geographical location, Townsville's winter rainfall in particular is not as high as elsewhere in the eastern coastal tropics of Queensland. The winter months are dominated by southeast trade winds and mostly fine weather. Further north the coastline runs north–south and the trade winds are lifted to produce rainfall right through the year. Townsville, however, lies on a section of coastline that turns east/west, so the lifting effect is not present. As a result, winter months are dominated by blue skies, warm days and cool nights, although at times significant rainfall may occur.
Like most of Northern Australia, Townsville is susceptible to tropical cyclones. They usually occur between December and April, forming mainly out in the Coral Sea, and usually tracking west to the coast.
Notable weather events to affect the Townsville Region have been: Cyclone Sid (in particular damaging the Strand and causing major flooding early in the year after forming in Darwin over Christmas), Category 5 Cyclone Yasi, the Ross River Flood (where the dam reached close to 250% capacity), Cyclone Debbie (which crossed the Whitsunday Islands), Cyclone Althea (directly hitting Townsville), Cyclone Gloria (cutting the Bruce Highway), Cyclone Sigma (caused the loss of at least 23 lives) and Cyclone Charlie (which looked to be heading directly to Townsville before turning south to cross at Cape Upstart).
Fingers crossed there’s no damaging weather events in April 2022.