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All eyes on Tropical Cyclone Oma

Ben Domensino, Tuesday February 19, 2019 - 11:36 AEDT

Tropical Cyclone Oma is quickly becoming one of the most talked about cyclones of the season.

While Oma's future track is still uncertain, some forecast models suggest that it could head towards Queensland at the end of this week.

The possibility of a coastal crossing in Queensland is certainly something worth taking note of. However, it's still a too early to know whether Oma will actually reach Australia's mainland just yet.

On Tuesday morning, Tropical Cyclone Oma was located to the northwest of New Caledonia, about 1,300km away from the Queensland coast.

Image: Tropical Cyclone Oma on Tuesday morning.

The system is expected to move towards the southwest through the Coral Sea during the next 2-3 days, bringing it a bit closer to eastern Australia. After this, confidence in the forecast drops off.

America's Joint Typhoon Warning Centre (JTWC) pointed out in a forecast on Tuesday morning that there's high confidence in Tropical Cyclone Oma's movement until Thursday morning. Beyond that, forecast models start to spread out and forecast confidence drops considerably.

Two of the more reliable international forecast models, Europe's ECMWF and America's GFS, show different paths for Oma beyond Friday and become even more divergent on the weekend.

While the future path of Cyclone Oma is still uncertain, the system is likely to produce a powerful swell that will generate large and dangerous waves in southeast Queensland and northeast NSW later this week. This damaging surf will be exacerbated by King Tides under a full moon, which could cause some coastal flooding and erosion.

Tropical Cyclone Oma's future movement will become more certain each day, so be sure to keep up to date with the latest information if you live in eastern Australia.

- Weatherzone

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