Tropical Cyclone Alfred live updates: 70k without power as Alfred bears down

Tropical Cyclone Alfred has performed a “second pirouette” overnight, with a new target in its sights when the monster storm makes landfall.

Around 70,000 homes in both Queensland and New South Wales are without power, 24 hours before Tropical Cyclone Alfred even makes landfall.

Hardest hit areas for outages include the Gold Coast and, in NSW, the Tweed and Byron shires where thousands of homes are dark. Drenching rains are already occurring with Coolangatta receiving 135mm in the 24 hours since 9am on Thursday, Ballina 88mm and Lismore 141mm.

The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) said that at 2am on Friday, Alfred was 205km east of Brisbane.

It is a category 2 cyclone and has further slowed down. It is now not expected to make landfall between Brisbane and Maroochydore until either late on Friday or early on Saturday morning.

While a slowing cyclone means time to evacuate, it also means Alfred could linger pouring down even more rain – perhaps getting on for a metre’s worth in some areas.

It will likely remain at category 2 until it hits Brisbane’s offshore islands and then begin powering down to category 1 as it continues to the mainland.

Wind gusts of up to 155km/h can be expected as well as driving rain and flash flooding.

A danger zone is in place from Double Island Point in Queensland, north of Noosa, to north of Grafton in New South Wales, including Brisbane, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, Byron Bay and Ballina.

Read on for further updates.

Originally published as Tropical Cyclone Alfred live updates: 70k without power as Alfred bears down