As Tropical Cyclone Narelle swept across Western Australia, it left residents in the tourism town of Denham in awe and apprehension.
As the storm approached on Friday, the horizon transformed into an “incredibly eerie” sight as the skies turned blood red.
This rare visual was caused by the storm’s massive dust clouds and unique atmospheric conditions as it advanced toward the World Heritage-listed Shark Bay.
Narelle has been a historically unusual system becoming the first in over 20 years to make landfall in three different Australian jurisdictions.
After Queensland and the Northern Territory, it re-intensified into a powerful Category 4 cyclone over the Indian Ocean.
Residents described the atmosphere as “eerily silent” while they bunkered down with one local noting, “now we’re in a code red, the streets are deserted, it’s eerie.”
By Saturday evening, the system began to lose its tropical characteristics. The Bureau of Meteorology confirmed that Narelle was downgraded to a subtropical storm as it moved inland and then offshore into the Southern Ocean.
While the immediate cyclonic threat has passed, authorities remain on alert for flash flooding and have warned that “the community is waiting for the clean-up” to begin in earnest this week.
