On This Date: Most Powerful Tropical Cyclone In Australia Could Have Been Worse

The history of hurricanes and tropical cyclones includes several close calls.

On Dec. 15, 1999, 26 years ago today, Tropical Cyclone John roared ashore at Category 4 intensity in western Australia’s Pilbara region.

Up to 130 mph wind gusts caused extensive damage to a hotel in the town of Whim Creek, and rainfall topped 7 inches along its path.

But John could have been much worse.

This large cyclone rapidly intensified to a Category 5 storm, and it held that intensity until the day before landfall. Its minimum pressure — 915 millibars — was roughly the same as Hurricane Irma’s peak strength when it was ransacking Antigua and Barbuda in 2017. John was also headed toward the towns of Dampier and Karratha.

But in the last 12 hours before landfall, upper-level winds curled John toward the southeast, pushing its landfall and most intense eyewall winds into a lower-populated area between Port Hedland and Karratha. John also lost a bit of its top-end wind intensity by landfall.

As it stood, a 6-to-7-foot storm surge and wind gusts up to 77 mph did occur at Port Hedland while John was still offshore. But damage in Dampier and Karratha was much less than what would have been the case had the cyclone not curled southeastward.

At the time, Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology told the BBC John was “unequivocally the most powerful cyclone ever recorded in Australia.“

Fortunately, that didn’t mean it was the country’s most destructive cyclone.

Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at weather.com and has been covering national and international weather since 1996. Extreme and bizarre weather are his favorite topics. Reach out to him on Bluesky, X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook.