Destructive winds lash Australia as Cyclone Debbie hits

Cyclone Debbie hit the Queensland coast on Tuesday, causing significant destruction that's yet to be fully accounted for in iconic tourist destinations like the Whitsunday Islands. The storm will likely be the strongest tropical cyclone to strike the country since Cyclone Yasi hit in 2011. That storm caused $3.6 billion in damage.

The center of the storm began to make landfall around 12 p.m. near Bowen, a town of about 10,000 people. At the time, Cyclone Debbie had maximum sustained winds near the centre of 185 kilometers per hour, or 115 miles per hour, with gusts up to 260 kilometers (162 miles) per hour. 

Strong winds and heavy rain were felt all the way north to the city of Townsville, according to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM). It's forecast to continue moving southwest for the next 12 to 18 hours.

The storm also lashed the tourist destination of the Whitsunday Islands with high waves and storm surge flooding. Wind gusts of up to 262 kilometers (163 miles) per hour were observed at the region's airport on Hamilton Island Tuesday morning.

Police in the area warned they would no longer be able to respond to calls because of the danger,  with residents instructed to shelter above the expected water level. 

The BOM is also warning of the potential for inland flooding as the storm moves west and weakens. Some rainfall totals of greater than 500 millimeters, or about 20 inches, are possible, the BOM said. 

The storm is occurring during a historically inactive Southern Hemisphere tropical storm season, with just 4 cyclones reaching hurricane intensity so far during the 2016-17 Southern Hemisphere storm season. This is the fewest on record to date, according to Colorado State University researcher Philip Klotzbach. 

Tropical cyclones in the Southern Hemisphere are the same type of storm as hurricanes and typhoons, but they are simply known by a different name. (They also spin the other way compared to a hurricane striking the U.S., in the clockwise direction.)

Australia ranks its tropical cyclones differently than how the U.S. measures hurricane intensity. For example, in Australia, the mean wind speed is defined over a period of 10 minutes, whereas the U.S. uses a 1-minute average. This is why the Australian cyclone intensity scale doesn't exactly match up to the Atlantic hurricane intensity scale.

Downgraded by the BOM to Category 3 by Tuesday afternoon, Cyclone Debbie hit the coast as a Category 4 cyclone. In Australia, that is equivalent to a Category 2 or 3 storm in the U.S.  

Regardless of this discrepancy, Cyclone Debbie is capable of causing significant structural damage, widespread flooding and power outages as well as other lasting damage. 

One benefit of the storm could be how it stirs up cooler ocean waters from below, potentially relieving temperature stress on parts of the Great Barrier Reef, which is suffering from an unprecedented 3-year stretch of coral bleaching. However, the hardest-hit parts of the reef are located farther north of where the storm has moved.

UPDATE: March 28, 2017, 11:09 a.m. AEDT Latest statistics from the Bureau of Meteorology.

UPDATE: March 28, 2017, 1:39 p.m. AEDT Latest statistics from the Bureau of Meteorology.

UPDATE: March 28, 2017, 6:11 p.m. AEDT Latest statistics from the Bureau of Meteorology.

WATCH: Watch how coral bleaching happens in warming waters