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Each year, cyclones close shipping lanes and
disrupt mining of hundreds of millions of tonnes of iron ore,
coal, sugar and other commodities in Australia.
The low is moving slowly westwards and the risk of a cyclone is
dependent on whether the low moves over open water for long
enough, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology said.
In the state of Western Australia, such storms, packing minimum
sustained winds of 63 km per hour, frequently disrupt mining and
loading at ports accounting for more than a fifth of the world's
seaborne trade in iron ore.
The likelihood of the system intensifying into a cyclone rises
from 5 percent on Tuesday to between 20 percent and 50 percent
on Wednesday, it said.
However, the most likely track will keep the low over land or
too close to the coast to enable a cyclone to develop, the
bureau said.
Last season 10 tropical storms reached cyclone strength on the
east and west coasts, just under the national average of 11. The
last time the number of cyclones exceeded the national average
was in 2005/06, when 14 cyclones were recorded, nine rated as
severe.
The Australian cyclone season runs from Nov. 1 to April 30.
(Reporting by James Regan; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
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