Australia’s beaches recover from Ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred as extreme weather intensifies
Ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred was the first storm of its kind to hit Brisbane, Australia, in more than 50 years. Earlier this month, it turned pristine beaches along the country’s Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast into steep cliffs that drop off yards away from the ocean waves.
“Normally it’s beautiful on the Gold Coast. Perfect, so much sand, the water is crystal clear blue,” said Nathan Fife, Gold Coast operations manager for Surf Life Saving Queensland. “Unfortunately, right now you can’t even get down the beach. The water is brown. It looks like a chocolate milkshake.”
The tropical storm that hit eastern Australia’s shores battered many beaches along a 300-mile stretch of coastline that draws millions of tourists each year. Now, local governments and volunteers are working to clean up the destruction. This rare storm is the latest example of increasingly extreme weather in Australia. And climate change has left the country often battling multiple natural disasters at once.
Days after the storm, the stench of washed-up seaweed piled up on the sunken shoreline emanated on the beaches of the Gold Coast. Entire walkways were destroyed, and a lifeguard stand was sat askew after falling into the ocean. Long staircases were filled to the top with sand.
“It absolutely stinks down here at the moment,” Fife said while surveying the beaches for the first time after the storm. “I’ve never seen anything like this on the Gold Coast, ever.”
In front of the Broadbeach Surf Life Saving Club, visitors now face a 10-foot drop in the sand before they can dip their toes in the ocean. Still, using makeshift ramps dug into the dune, a handful of brave tourists, joggers and the obligatory man with a metal detector made their way down.
Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate said the city plans to have the beaches up and running again by the Easter holidays, when tourists tend to come.
“There is no doubt our city will bounce back, and our iconic beaches will return to their former glory, ready to welcome the millions of holidaymakers who choose our destination each year,” Tate said in a press statement.
Excavators have already gone out on the beach attempting to level out some of the sand, and teams of relief workers have been clearing away debris. But this beachside town is not the only place in Australia recovering from extreme weather.
On the other side of the continent, firefighters have been battling bushfires in Western Australia, in the rural south coast settlement of Windy Harbour. In South Australia, severe drought is driving people in the Adelaide Hills area from their homes and threatening local food production as water runs out and dams dry up.
In recent years, Australia has seen a series of extreme weather events. There were unprecedented bushfires and wildfires in 2019 and 2020, which spreadacross an area the size of the United Kingdom. Nearly 3 billion animals were killed or displaced, according to WWF Australia. Last year was Australia’s second-hottest year on record, and this February, north Queensland faced record-breaking floods.
“Australia is the land of extremes,” said Helen Bostock, an oceanographer at the University of Queensland. “We have really warm tropical monsoon-like conditions in northern Australia, down to really dry, kind of temperate, slightly cooler conditions down in the south.”
Australia’s weather patterns have always been highly variable, she said, but rising temperatures in the ocean and atmosphere are impacting those natural weather processes and fueling these major disasters.
“It’s the combination of the natural variability with climate change that is leading to these more extreme conditions compared to what we’ve seen historically in the past,” she added.
Deserts cover about 18% of the mainland, and the continent is the second driest in the world after Antarctica.
“The bushfire risk is quite high in many places, especially in the southern states where they are even drier and don’t get as much rainfall,” said Annie Lau, a coastal geomorphologist at the University of Queensland. “We see from the data that the country as a whole is becoming drier.”
The Bureau of Meteorology’s 2024 State of the Climate report predicts a continued increase in dangerous fires and a longer fire season in much of southern and eastern Australia. Meanwhile, the Australian region’s annual sea surface temperatures in 2024 were the warmest on record, according to the Bureau.
Australia is also highly impacted by the El Niño and La Niña climate patterns, a cycle of warmer and cooler tropical sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean. El Niño events lead to heatwaves, bushfires and droughts on the continent. During La Niña events, eastern Australia experiences more rainfall and cooler temperatures.
Steve Turton, an adjunct professor of environmental geography at Central Queensland University, said the devastating fires of 2019 and 2020 have been followed by a very wet period, and more intense rainfall leads to more growth of vegetation.
“Of course, the pendulum will swing the other way. When that happens, we’ll plunge into drought and the whole place will be primed for serious fires once again,” he said. “We’ve always had those cycles, but these cycles are now becoming more pronounced.”
Australia is a global hotspot for climate change, he added, especially in the eastern half of the country where most of the population lives. And, Turton said, the changing climate will continue to drive the country’s increasingly intense weather events.