Queensland is no stranger to natural disasters, but now its resilience is being tested once again as a slow-moving tropical storm tracks towards the coast overnight.
Australia's Bureau of Meteorology has this evening officially declared Cyclone Kirrily has formed into a category one system, threatening Queensland with severe rain, flash flooding and damaging winds.
"The system is forecast to cross the coast, most likely between Innisfail and Airlie Beach and during Thursday," the bureau advised.
"From Friday, the system is expected to become an inland rain depression and heavy rainfall may develop across central and southern inland, as well as south-east Queensland over the weekend as the system tracks south."
Queensland Deputy Police Commissioner Shane Chelepy said authorities were concerned about the two separate serious weather events that are expected to wreak havoc on coastal and inland communities like Townsville.
"The state disaster management system is effectively planning for two events," Chelepy said.
Residents have spent the past few days preparing for the worst.
One resident said she wasn't taking any chances after experiencing the wrath of Cyclone Jasper just before Christmas.
"Shovel some sandbags, hope for the best, and hopefully don't get flooded," she said.
The first weather event emergency services warned about were the up to 155km/h cyclonic winds as the storm system makes landfall.
The second was the potentially devastating floods that would come from both the high tides and the deluge of rainfall as Kirrily slowly staggered inland.
Meteorologist Laura Boekel said the storm would likely idle and dump torrential rain for days after the initial impact.
"It will still have with it a significant amount of rainfall," she said.
"This could be a widespread as well as a very long duration event."
Queensland Premier Steven Miles said "severe" impact was likely, warning, "Some of the models predict up to a metre of rain and that's a massive amount of water on already saturated enactments."
The warning came more than a month after ex-Tropical Cyclone Jasper crossed the Queensland Coast near Wujal Wujal, which resulted in devastating flooding throughout the region.
Miles said one of the biggest concerns was the "fatigue" of volunteers and emergency services after the "hellish" summer of storms.
"We'll be carefully making sure they have all the support and services they need."
New South Wales Fire and Emergency services were deployed to join the already extensive preparation efforts across Queensland.
But residents have been warned by authorities not to rely on aid arriving fast and urged them to prepare to "fend for themselves" for up to three days if services could not reach them.
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