Cyclone Veronica batters Australia’s northern coast days after Cyclone Trevor

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Two successive cyclones hit coastal regions of Australia this weekend bringing torrential rains and winds of up to 125 kilometres per hour.

Cyclone Veronica edged its way gradually across the country north-western coast on Saturday, bringing rainfall of 416 mm in northern parts of the sparsely populated Pilbara region.

Around 60,000 people live in the area worst affected by the storm, but there have been no reports of resulting injuries or major structural damage.

The iron ore mining region is said to be generally well equipped to deal with cyclones that regularly lash its coast.

Cyclone Veronica has battered northern parts of Australia
EPA

Western Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology reported on Monday that Veronica has weakened from a Category 3 storm – where 5 is the strongest – to a Category 1, but locals are being urged to remain vigilant amid threats of widespread flooding in western parts of the country.

Heavy rains continue throughout much of Pilbara, with the highest fall on Sunday reaching 360 mm in 24 hours in the Upper North Pole of the region.

Category 4 Cyclone Trevor made landfall on Saturday, about 1,600 kilometres east of Pilbara, between the remote communities of Numbulwar and Borroloola.

Two thousand people living in these northern coastal regions were evacuated when a state of emergency was declared, making it the region's biggest evacuation effort in nearly 50 years.

Residents have now started to return home following Trevor’s downgrade to a tropical low pressure system on Sunday. Many of them had stocked up on food and water and reinforced their houses with sandbags.

The Bureau of Meteorology described Veronica’s formation – with the bulk of the heavy rain trailing behind the cyclone – as an “unusual phenomenon”.

Meteorologist Steph Bond told the BBC that for two strong cyclones to happen at the same time was almost unprecedented, having only happened twice in Australia's history.

She attributed the twin cyclones to a climate phenomenon known as the Madden-Julian Oscillation, which creates"favourable" conditions for summer storms.

Veronica is moving slowly west off the coast of Pilbara and is expected to weaken below cyclone intensity overnight on Monday.

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