May 25, 2020

Anna Murray 

The official tropical season for Australia was declared to end on April 30. However, a late-season cyclone of the South Indian Ocean, Tropical Cyclone Mangga, was formed on May 21 near the southwest of Island Sumatra in Indonesia earlier.

Tropical Cyclone Mangga stormed over the Cocos (Keeling) Islands with strong winds reported at 61 km per hour (38 mph) and heavy rains. On May 23, Mangga reportedly weakened to become post-tropical.

While approaching the western coast of Australia, Mangga merged with another storm system and brought the worst weather in a decade in strong winds, heavy rains, floods, and huge waves to regions of Western Australia.

On May 24, strong winds reached as high as 82 km per hour (51 mph) in Perth and 117 km per hour (72 mph) at Cape Naturaliste knocking out trees and left more than 60,000 customers without power along Australia's western shores. According to Australia’s weather records, wind speeds of up to 132km per hour were registered at Cape Leeuwin on May 25.

The storm surge had caused huge waves to erode beaches at Port Beach near Fremantle's coastal areas. A section of the car park had fallen into the ocean and a large area of significant erosion around it has also been separated due to the storm.