As Tropical Cyclone Alfred bears down on south-east Queensland and northern NSW, most people in its path will never have experienced anything like it.
The last time a tropical cyclone hit Brisbane was more than 50 years ago, in 1974.
Though the city has seen plenty of ferocious storms since, Dr David Henderson of James Cook University’s cyclone testing unit explained why Alfred is so different.
‘Many people here would have been through some severe thunderstorms,’ Dr Henderson told Daily Mail Australia.
‘They’re intense, they’re very short duration and they only affect a part of the community. This one is different, it’s a couple of hundred kilometres wide.
‘It’s impacting all of us in the community, and when it gets here it going to last for many, many hours.’
He said people in Alfred’s impact zone have to think differently about this weather pattern than any other they have come across.
‘You’ve got to prepare yourself more mentally if you’re sheltering in your home. It’s not like a thunderstorm just blasting over you,’ he said.
A woman is seen walking past a sandbagged home at Currumbin on the Gold Coast
A worker is pictured repairing power lines damaged due to a fallen tree following heavy rainfall before the landfall of Cyclone Alfred, at Chinderah, in northern NSW, on Wednesday
A person surfs large swells at Kirra on the Gold Coast, Queensland, as Aldred looms
‘This is going to be happening for several hours. So we’ve got to be prepared for that, sheltering in our homes.’
He said people should not stand next to their windows when the cyclone hits, as they could ‘potentially get hit by debris or broken glass’.
Dr Henderson also busted the myth that putting tape in an X shape on windows during a storm or cyclone will prevent them breaking.
‘The masking tape is nothing to do with strengthening the window of the glass. It’s not doing that at all,’ he said.
‘So please don’t think that masking tape has somehow made your glass bulletproof. It may help keep some of the glass pieces together if they break, so it’s a bit easier cleaning stuff up.
‘But it doesn’t stop glass shards getting blown into your house,’ he said.
This is backed up by the Queensland government’s Cyclone Alfred information page, which says the idea that ‘taping an X on your window will prevent it from breaking’ is not true.
It instead advises residents to ‘tape a plastic sheet to the edge of the window frame on the inside to reduce wind-driven rainwater coming into the home’.
