The 1998–99 Australian region cyclone season was an above average

tropical cyclone A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system with a low-pressure area, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depending on its locat ...

season that featured Gwenda, the most intense tropical cyclone in the Australian Region (later tied with

Inigo Inigo is a masculine given name deriving from the Castilian rendering (Íñigo) of the medieval Basque name Eneko. Ultimately, the name means "my little (man)". While mostly seen among the Iberian diaspora, it also gained a limited popularity ...

in 2003) . It began on 1 November 1998 and ended on 30 April 1999. The regional tropical cyclone operational plan also defines a ''tropical cyclone year'' separately from a ''tropical cyclone season'', which runs from 1 July 1998 to 30 June 1999. Tropical cyclones in this area are monitored by four Tropical Cyclone Warning Centres (TCWCs): the

Australian Bureau of Meteorology The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM or BoM) is an executive agency of the Australian Government that is responsible for providing weather forecasts and meteorological services to Australia and neighbouring countries. It was established in 1906 unde ...

Perth Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...

, Darwin, and

Brisbane Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...

; and TCWC

Port Moresby (; Tok Pisin: ''Pot Mosbi''), also referred to as Pom City or simply Moresby, is the capital and largest city of Papua New Guinea. It is one of the largest cities in the southwestern Pacific (along with Jayapura) outside of Australia and New ...

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

.http://www.wmo.ch/web/www/TCP/TCP24-English2004.pdf __TOC__

Systems

ImageSize = width:800 height:200 PlotArea = top:10 bottom:80 right:20 left:20 Legend = columns:3 left:30 top:58 columnwidth:270 AlignBars = early DateFormat = dd/mm/yyyy Period = from:01/10/1998 till:10/05/1999 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal ScaleMinor = grid:black unit:month increment:1 start:01/10/1998 Colors = id:canvas value:gray(0.88) id:GP value:red id:TL value:rgb(0.43,0.76,0.92) legend:Tropical_Low_=_<63_km/h_(<39_mph) id:C1 value:rgb(0.3,1,1) legend:Category_1_=_63–88_km/h_(39-55_mph) id:C2 value:rgb(0.75,1,0.75) legend:Category_2_=_89–117_km/h_(55-73_mph) id:C3 value:rgb(1,0.85,0.55) legend:Category_3_=_118–159_km/h_(73-99_mph) id:C4 value:rgb(1,0.45,0.54) legend:Category_4_=_160–199_km/h_(99-124_mph) id:C5 value:rgb(0.55,0.46,0.9) legend:Category_5_=_≥200_km/h_(≥124_mph) Backgroundcolors = canvas:canvas BarData = barset:Hurricane bar:Month PlotData= barset:Hurricane width:10 align:left fontsize:S shift:(4,-4) anchor:till from:07/10/1998 till:10/10/1998 color:C1 text:"Zelia (C1)" from:07/11/1998 till:13/11/1998 color:C3 text:"Alison (C3)" from:30/11/1998 till:15/12/1998 color:C5 text:" Thelma (C5)" from:01/12/1998 till:06/12/1998 color:C3 text:"Billy (C3)" from:22/12/1998 till:28/12/1998 color:C2 text:"Cathy (C2)" from:20/01/1999 till:21/01/1999 color:C1 text:"Olinda (C1)" from:21/01/1999 till:28/01/1999 color:C3 text:"Damien (C3)" barset:break from:21/01/1999 till:23/01/1999 color:C2 text:"Pete (C2)" from:24/01/1999 till:27/01/1999 color:TL text:"16P (TL)" from:31/01/1999 till:14/02/1999 color:TL text:"18S (TL)" from:09/02/1999 till:12/02/1999 color:C3 text:" Rona (C3)" from:07/03/1999 till:14/03/1999 color:TL text:"26S (TL)" from:14/03/1999 till:23/03/1999 color:C5 text:" Vance (C5)" from:15/03/1999 till:20/03/1999 color:C4 text:"Elaine (C4)" barset:break from:25/03/1999 till:01/04/1999 color:C5 text:"Frederic (C5)" from:02/04/1999 till:08/04/1999 color:C5 text:" Gwenda (C5)" from:19/04/1999 till:21/04/1999 color:C2 text:"Hamish (C2)" bar:Month width:5 align:center fontsize:S shift:(0,-20) anchor:middle color:canvas from:01/10/1998 till:01/11/1998 text:October from:01/11/1998 till:01/12/1998 text:November from:01/12/1998 till:01/01/1999 text:December from:01/01/1999 till:01/02/1999 text:January from:01/02/1999 till:01/03/1999 text:February from:01/03/1999 till:01/04/1999 text:March from:01/04/1999 till:01/05/1999 text:April TextData = pos:(569,23) text:"(For further details, please see" pos:(713,23) text:"

scales Scale or scales may refer to: Mathematics * Scale (descriptive set theory), an object defined on a set of points * Scale (ratio), the ratio of a linear dimension of a model to the corresponding dimension of the original * Scale factor, a number ...

Tropical Cyclone Zelia

This storm developed near Cocos Island.

Severe Tropical Cyclone Alison

tropical depression A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system with a low-pressure area, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depending on its locat ...

formed on 6 November 1998 near

Cocos Island Cocos Island () is a volcanic island in the Pacific Ocean administered by Costa Rica, approximately southwest of the Costa Rican mainland. It constitutes the 11th of the 15 districts of Puntarenas Canton of the Puntarenas Province, Province of ...

. The

rapidly strengthened into Tropical Cyclone Alison on the same day. Alison was 130 miles northeast of

and was moving southeas

Alison passed only 25 miles south of Cocos bringing gale-force winds to the island. On 11 November, Alison encountered wind shear which weakened the storm and by 13 November the storm dissipate

Severe Tropical Cyclone Billy

Billy formed on 1 December 1998 off the northwestern Australia coast. The storm moved nearly due south before making landfall near Onslow, Western Australiabr>
Damage estimates from Australia are unavailable.

Severe Tropical Cyclone Thelma

On 3 December a tropical depression formed in the

Arafura Sea The Arafura Sea (or Arafuru Sea) lies west of the Pacific Ocean, overlying the continental shelf between Australia and Western New Guinea (also called Papua), which is the Indonesian part of the Island of New Guinea. Geography The Arafura Sea is ...

, 250 miles east-northeast of Darwin. The system drifted southwestward, strengthening into Tropical Cyclone Thelma on 6 December. Thelma continued to intensify as it turned to the south-southwest, reaching Category 5 strengthen on the Australian cyclone scale as it brushed the

Tiwi Islands The Tiwi Islands ( meaning "two islands") are part of the Northern Territory, Australia, to the north of Darwin, Northern Territory, Darwin adjoining the Timor Sea. They comprise Melville Island, Northern Territory, Melville Island, Bathurst I ...

br>
Cyclone Thelma reached a peak of 140 mph with a minimum pressure of 925

mbar The bar is a metric unit of pressure defined as 100,000 Pa (100 kPa), though not part of the International System of Units (SI). A pressure of 1 bar is slightly less than the current average atmospheric pressure on Earth at sea ...

on the 8th, and made landfall on the western Australian coastline on the 10th. After making landfall, the storm paralleled the coastline, and rapidly weakened to a tropical storm. Favorable conditions aloft allowed it to remain a tropical storm until the 15th, when the storm dissipated near Port Hedland. Thelma was responsible for moderate rainfall and downed trees, but caused no casualties due to the sparse population of where it hit.

Tropical Low

On 3 December, an area of concentrated convection developed from a

monsoon A monsoon () is traditionally a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation but is now used to describe seasonal changes in Atmosphere of Earth, atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with annu ...

trough over the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia (continent), ...

. The next day RSMC La Reunion issued one advisory on this system, labeling it "A3". Over the next few days the area drifted eastward into the Australian region and slowly organized. The warning center at Perth initiated bulletins on the tropical low on 7 December when the system was located 175 nm west-northwest of

. The low remained essentially stationary for the next 48 hours while slowly weakening. Perth discontinued bulletins on the 8th, but continued to track the low for the next few days. The remnants of the low drifted eastward to a point about 150 nm north-northwest of Cocos. There is a significant possibility that this low is the same persistent one that developed into Tropical Cyclone Cathy.

Tropical Cyclone Cathy

This storm developed near Cocos Island.

Tropical Low

A tropical disturbance was first noted by JTWC over the Gulf of Carpentaria on 25 December. The system deepened as it moved slowly westward over the next two days. The disturbance continued to intensify over the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (abbreviated as NT; known formally as the Northern Territory of Australia and informally as the Territory) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian internal territory in the central and central-northern regi ...

, until it stalled over the border of

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

for a couple of days. On 30 December the system moved over water and began to develop further, prompting TCWC

to issue a Tropical Cyclone Watch for portions of the southern Gulf coast. The low turned south-southeast shortly afterwards, and warnings were canceled when it became apparent that the center moved back inland. The system weakened over northwestern Queensland and dissipated on 2 January. The low brought heavy rains to the state of Queensland, with many centers reporting 24-hour totals over 150 mm. This rainfall activity was enhanced by an upper-level trough which brought showers as far south as

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

on 1 January. Widespread flooding caused some of river systems which feed into

Lake Eyre Lake Eyre ( ), officially known as Kati Thanda–Lake Eyre, is an endorheic lake in the east-central part of the Far North (South Australia), Far North region of South Australia, some 700 km (435 mi) north of Adelaide. It is the larg ...

to reach flood stage. At least one death was indirectly attributed to the storm, when heavy rain and fog caused a car to drive off a road north of Brisbane.

Tropical Cyclone Olinda

Tropical Cyclone Olinda existed from 20 to 21 January.

Severe Tropical Cyclone Damien–Birenda

Severe Tropical Cyclone Damien–Birenda existed from 21 to 28 January.

Tropical Cyclone Pete

Tropical Cyclone Pete existed from 21 to 23 January.

Tropical Low 16P

An elongated monsoon trough spread across northern Australia in late January. On 22 January the Joint Typhoon Warning Center began mentioning a disturbance in the Gulf of Carpentaria in their daily Tropical Weather Outlooks. The disturbance drifted eastward from the north of

Arnhem Land Arnhem Land is a historical region of the Northern Territory of Australia. It is located in the north-eastern corner of the territory and is around from the territorial capital, Darwin, Northern Territory, Darwin. In 1623, Dutch East India Compa ...

into the northern Gulf. The TCWC at Darwin begin issuing warnings on 24 January and a cyclone watch was posted for portions of the southern Gulf Coast. JTWC issued a Formation Alert early that day and began issuing warnings on the 25th. The system drifted slowly in a south-southwesterly direction over the next couple of days. According to JTWC estimates, the system strengthened into a tropical storm at 1200 UTC on 25 January. Conditions deteriorated on 26 January when the system ran into some vertical

wind shear Wind shear (; also written windshear), sometimes referred to as wind gradient, is a difference in wind speed and/or direction over a relatively short distance in the atmosphere. Atmospheric wind shear is normally described as either vertical ...

and weakened. The JTWC noted that a second circulation appeared to the east of the warning position and that dry air entrainment had led to decreased organization of the depressions. When the low was about 125 nm east of

Alyangula Alyangula is the largest township on Groote Eylandt in the Northern Territory, Australia. History Groote Eylandt Mining Company ( GEMCO) established Alyangula as the residence for the mining company workers in the late 1960s. The township was ...

, Darwin issued the last gale warning, and ceased advices on the slow-moving system 24 hours later.

Tropical Low 18S

A tropical low numbered 18S existed from 31 January to 14 February.

Severe Tropical Cyclone Rona

Rona formed in the Coral Sea and crossed the Queensland coast on 11 February causing major flooding between

Cairns Cairns (; ) is a city in the Cairns Region, Queensland, Australia, on the tropical north east coast of Far North Queensland. In the , Cairns had a population of 153,181 people. The city was founded in 1876 and named after William Cairns, Sir W ...

and

Townsville The City of Townsville is a city on the north-eastern coast of Queensland, Australia. With a population of 201,313 as of 2024, it is the largest settlement in North Queensland and Northern Australia (specifically, the parts of Australia north of ...

with extensive crop damage. It eventually reformed into Severe Tropical Cyclone Frank in the South Pacific.

Tropical Low 26S

A tropical low numbered 26S existed from 7 to 14 March.

Severe Tropical Cyclone Elaine

Making landfall on 20 March, this cyclone devastated the small town of Moora, where houses and commercial properties in the town were inundated by the floodwaters and approximately 1000 people were evacuate

Severe Tropical Cyclone Vance

formed in the

Timor Sea The Timor Sea (, , or ) is a relatively shallow sea in the Indian Ocean bounded to the north by the island of Timor with Timor-Leste to the north, Indonesia to the northwest, Arafura Sea to the east, and to the south by Australia. The Sunda Tr ...

on 16 March 1999. The storm lingered before being upgraded to

cyclone In meteorology, a cyclone () is a large air mass that rotates around a strong center of low atmospheric pressure, counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere as viewed from above (opposite to an ant ...

status and was named Vance. By 19 March, Cyclone Vance had reached Category 3 status as it neared the

Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal Aus ...

coast. On 20 March, Vance became a Category 5 Australian cyclone as it made landfall near

Exmouth Exmouth is a harbor, port town, civil parishes in England, civil parish and seaside resort situated on the east bank of the mouth of the River Exe, southeast of Exeter. In 2011 it had a population of 34,432, making Exmouth the List of settl ...

. Moving southward, the interaction with land weakened Vance and by 24 March, the storm dissipated before reaching Victoria, Australia. Vance caused significant flooding and property damage but there were no death

Severe Tropical Cyclone Vance devastated the northwest town of Exmouth. A measured wind gust of 267 km/h, recorded at 11.50 am (WST) 22 March, at Learmonth Meteorological Office, is the highest wind speed ever recorded on mainland Australia. The Bureau's Regional Director Len Broadbridge said that Vance was one of the most severe cyclones in Australia's history. "The wind speeds experienced at Exmouth are possibly the strongest experienced by an Australian town or city in recorded history.

Tropical Low

Another tropical low existed from 20 to 21 March.

Severe Tropical Cyclone Frederic–Evrina

1998–99 South-West Indian Ocean cyclone season#Intense Tropical Cyclone Frederic–Evrina, This cyclone moved into Reunion area of responsibility on 1 April.

Severe Tropical Cyclone Gwenda

Cyclone Gwenda was another category 5 cyclone, the strongest of the season and the most powerful cyclone in this region on record. It formed on 4 April, and fortunately weakened before making landfall near

Port Hedland A port is a maritime law, maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge Affreightment, cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inla ...

, Australia on 7 April. Damage was minimal

Tropical Low

Another tropical low existed from 16 to 19 April.

Tropical Cyclone Hamish

This cyclone moved into Reunion area of responsibility on 21 April at tropical cyclone intensity. However, it was designated F1 and not named.

Storm names

Tropical cyclones are assigned names by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (Australia), Bureau of Meteorology or

. Tropical cyclones are named if they are non-frontal low pressure systems of

synoptic scale In meteorology, the synoptic scale (also called the large scale or cyclonic scale) is a horizontal length scale of the order of or more. This corresponds to a horizontal scale typical of mid-latitude depressions (e.g. extratropical cyclones). ...

developing over warm waters, or if Dvorak intensity analysis indicate the presence of gale force or stronger winds near the centre. Therefore, tropical systems with gales in one or more quadrants, but not near the centre, are not named. All names assigned in the Australian region are selected sequentially. Only the names used during this cyclone season are listed below. The complete list of names for each basin are found in the

World Meteorological Organization The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for promoting international cooperation on atmospheric science, climatology, hydrology an ...

's official lists. Each Australian Tropical Cyclone Warning Centre (

, Darwin, and

) maintains a list of names arranged alphabetically and alternating male and female. Tropical cyclones that develop in the South-East Indian Ocean are assigned names by the Tropical Cyclone Warning Centre in Perth. This region includes the areas east of 90°E, south of the

Equator The equator is the circle of latitude that divides Earth into the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Southern Hemisphere, Southern Hemispheres of Earth, hemispheres. It is an imaginary line located at 0 degrees latitude, about in circumferen ...

, and west of 125°E. Tropical cyclones that develop south of the Equator between 125°E and 141°E are assigned names by the Tropical Cyclone Warning Centre in Darwin,

. This area includes most of the cyclones that form in the

and Western

Gulf of Carpentaria The Gulf of Carpentaria is a sea off the northern coast of Australia. It is enclosed on three sides by northern Australia and bounded on the north by the eastern Arafura Sea, which separates Australia and New Guinea. The northern boundary ...

. Tropical cyclones in the

Coral Sea The Coral Sea () is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean, South Pacific off the northeast coast of Australia, and classified as an Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia, interim Australian bioregion. The Coral Sea extends down t ...

and Eastern Gulf of Carpentaria between 141°E and 160°E and south of 10°S are assigned names by the Tropical Cyclone Warning Centre in Brisbane,

. Perth * Zelia – Alison – Billy – Cathy – Damien – Elaine – Frederic – Gwenda – Hamish Darwin * Thelma – Vance Brisbane * Olinda – Pete – Rona Additionally, the Tropical Cyclone Warning Centre in

reserves the right to name cyclones that develop in the

Solomon Sea The Solomon Sea is a sea located within the Pacific Ocean. It lies between Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands. Many major battles were fought there during World War II. Extent The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of ...

and

Gulf of Papua The Gulf of Papua is located in the southern coast region of New Guinea. It has a total surface area of . Geography Some of New Guinea's largest rivers, such as the Fly River, Turama River, Kikori River, Purari River, and Wawoi River flow ...

, north of 10°S between 141°E and 160°E. Names are selected randomly from their list and retired once they are used. No cyclones were named by this warning centre during the 1998–99 season. The Bureau of Meteorology retired the names ''Elaine'', ''Gwenda'', ''Rona'', ''Thelma'' and ''Vance'', replacing them with ''Ellie'', ''Gabrielle'', ''Ruby'', ''Tasha'' and ''Verdun'' respectively. ''Ellie'' and ''Gabrielle'' were first used in the 2008–09 season, ''Tasha'' in

2010 The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...

and ''Ruby'' in

2021 Like the year 2020, 2021 was also heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the emergence of multiple Variants of SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 variants. The major global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which began at the end of 2020, continued ...

. ''Verdun'' was not retained after the naming lists were combined prior to the 2008-09 cyclone season.

Season effects

, - , Zelia , , , , bgcolor=#, Category 1 tropical cyclone , , bgcolor=#, , , bgcolor=#, , , None , , , , , , , - , - , - , - , Cathy , , , , bgcolor=#, Category 2 tropical cyclone , , bgcolor=#, , , bgcolor=#, , , None , , , , , , , - , - , Olinda , , , , bgcolor=#, Category 1 tropical cyclone , , bgcolor=#, , , bgcolor=#, , , New Caledonia , , , , , , , - , - , Pete , , , , bgcolor=#, Category 2 tropical cyclone , , bgcolor=#, , , bgcolor=#, , , New Caledonia , , , , , , , - , - , - , - ,

Hamish Hamish is a Scottish masculine given name. It is the anglicized form of the vocative case of the Gaelic name '' Seamus'' or ''Sheumais''. It is therefore, the equivalent of James. People Given name * Hamish Bennett, retired New Zealand cricke ...

, , , , bgcolor=#, Category 2 tropical cyclone , , bgcolor=#, , , bgcolor=#, , , None , , , , , ,

References

External links

Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC)
.
Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology

RA V Tropical Cyclone Committee Final Report

* tp://ftp.bom.gov.au/anon2/home/ncc/cyclone/cyclones_newformat.zip Raw cyclone track data
BoM Monthly Significant Weather Summaries

1998–99 Annual Summary (Western Australia)

* ttps://archive.today/20090512011942/http://australiasevereweather.com/cyclones/1999/summ1998-99.htm Gary Padgett's Southern Hemisphere 1998–1999 Tropical Cyclone Season Review {{DEFAULTSORT:1998-99 Australian Region Cyclone Season Australian region cyclone seasons

Systems

Tropical Cyclone Zelia

Severe Tropical Cyclone Alison

Severe Tropical Cyclone Billy

Severe Tropical Cyclone Thelma

Tropical Low

Tropical Cyclone Cathy

Tropical Low

Tropical Cyclone Olinda

Severe Tropical Cyclone Damien–Birenda

Tropical Cyclone Pete

Tropical Low 16P

Tropical Low 18S

Severe Tropical Cyclone Rona

Tropical Low 26S

Severe Tropical Cyclone Elaine

Severe Tropical Cyclone Vance

Tropical Low

Severe Tropical Cyclone Frederic–Evrina

Severe Tropical Cyclone Gwenda

Tropical Low

Tropical Cyclone Hamish

Storm names

Season effects

See also

References

External links