Tropical Cyclone Alfred live updates: 30k without power as Alfred bears down

Tens of thousands of people in two states have already been plunged into chaos before Cyclone Alfred has even officially arrived.

Around 30,000 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.

The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) said that at 11pm on Thursday night, Alfred was 245km 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.

It will likely remain at category 2 as 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.

Coolangatta has recorded 76mm of rain since 9am on Thursday and Lismore 51mm.

Read on for further updates.

Originally published as Tropical Cyclone Alfred live updates: 30k without power as Alfred bears down