On January 11, 2012, Tropical Cyclone Heidi was located roughly 45 nautical miles (85 kilometers) from Port Hedland, Australia. The U.S. Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) reported that Heidi packed maximum sustained winds of 55 knots (100 kilometers per hour) with gusts up to 70 knots (130 kilometers per hour). The storm was moving toward the south-southwest.
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this natural-color image on January 11, 2012. The center of the storm is north-northeast of Port Hedland, and storm clouds extended over much of the northwestern Australia coast.
The JTWC forecast that Heidi would make landfall slightly west of Port Hedland. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that flooding was expected overnight January 11–12, and that residents of low-lying areas should relocate to emergency shelters. PerthNow reported iron ore exports from Port Hedland had been disrupted, with terminals shut down ahead of the storm.
NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Michon Scott.
