Cyclone Bobby

Western Australia, February 19– 26, 1995 

An intensely powerful Category 4 (Australian scale) cyclone, Bobby battered the Australian towns of Onslow and Gascoyne Junction with 175-MPH (280-km/h) winds and deluging rains between February 24 and 26, 1995. With a minimum barometric pressure of 27.13 inches (919 mb) at landfall, Bobby was the most intense cyclone to strike northwestern Australia since Cyclone Tracy came ashore at Darwin on Christmas Day, 1974. Although Bobby’s fury would eventually claim the lives of seven people, its torrential rains—estimated to be in excess of 15 inches (38 cm) in some places—broke a prolonged drought over the Southwest Land Division.

The second cyclone of the 1995 season, Bobby was spawned over the Timor Sea, approximately 200 miles (322 km) northwest of Cape Londonderry, Australia, on February 19. Carried steadily southsouthwest at 10 MPH (16 km/h), the cyclone entered the energized 86 degree F (30 degrees C) waters of the east Indian Ocean and rapidly intensified. Aerial reconnaissance flights conducted by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology on the afternoon of February 21 indicated that Bobby’s central pressure had dropped to an alarming 28.47 inches (964 mb) and that its cloud mass with accompanying gales extended all the way to Indonesia.

As Bobby continued to strengthen through the afternoon of February 22, 125-MPH (201-km/h) winds swept the surface of the Indian Ocean, causing five-foot (1.5-m) swells to come ashore at Port Hedland, Australia. High wind and flood warnings were posted for much of the remote, mangrove-lined Pilbara coast as Bobby’s eye, now less than 400 miles (644 km) from the Dampier Archipelago, began to move in a tight south-southwesterly direction. A large area of high pressure had begun to curl up and around the cyclone’s southwestern flank, blocking its parallel track along the coast and redirecting it inland. Analogs based on the behavior of previous cyclones predicted that the system would make landfall somewhere in the vicinity of Barrow Island and that it would most likely continue to intensify as it came ashore.

In the small fishing town of Onslow, located approximately 850 miles (1,400 km) north of Perth, residents began the anxious task of securing their warehouses, storefronts, and holiday cottages against Bobby’s imminent onslaught. Hundreds of sandbags were deployed in low-lying areas around the village as a precaution against flash flooding. In the harbor itself, numerous prawn trawlers—steel-hulled 60-foot (20-m) vessels—were warped alongside their piers, secured against the cyclone’s anticipated 14-foot (4.6-m) storm surge. According to newspaper accounts, local stores were emptied of canned foods, bottled water, flashlights, and kerosene lanterns.

Stocks of plywood a nearby lumberyards were quickly depleted as homeowners worked through the night to construct storm shutters for their windows. Potentially lethal lawn furniture was stowed away, while small utility buildings were firmly anchored to the ground with stakes and chains. In the stormy Indian Ocean, where 15-foot (5-m) seas had already begun to crest, several stray prawn trawlers quickly altered their courses and headed for the uncertain refuge of their homeports.

With a central barometric pressure of 27.13 inches (919 mb), Cyclone Bobby blasted ashore at Onslow, Western Australia, just after midnight on February 23, 1995. Sustained winds of 132 MPH

(212 km/h) brought with them a 13-foot (4.3-m) storm surge, the highest seen on the Pilbara coast in a half-century. For 12 hours, Bobby’s 175-MPH (282-km/h) gusts and pelting rains stripped buildings of their roofs and siding, splintered storm shutters, crumpled billboards, toppled trees and telephone polls, sank several moored boats, and caused massive localized flooding. Mountainous wind-driven waves pummeled more than 100 miles (161 km) of shoreline, causing isolated mudslides and extensive beach erosion. Just outside the relative safety of Onslow’s harbor, two prawn trawlers were quickly overwhelmed by Bobby’s swamping seas. One vessel, the Harmony, was later found abandoned and capsized 10 miles (16 km) off the coast, while the sunken wreck of the other, the 50-ton Lady Pamela, was discovered by divers less than five miles (8 km) north of the harbor’s entrance. Of their crews—three men and one woman aboard the Harmony and three men from the Lady Pamela—no trace was ever found. 

Steadily moving across the mining fields of Western Australia, Cyclone Bobby’s slightly diminished winds and intense precipitation spawned raging floods that downed power lines, demolished mobile homes, closed airstrips, crippled rail links, and hampered gold-mining operations. On the morning of February 25, the small town of Gascoyne Junction, located 400 miles (644 km) southeast of Onslow, was buffeted by 100-MPH (161-km/h) winds and searing rains. Thirty people trapped on the roof of a roadhouse had to be airlifted to safety after the swollen Ashburton River overran its banks. Several of the region’s major thoroughfares, including the Pilbara access road, the North West Coastal Highway, and the Eyre Highway—Western Australia’s principal road link with the country’s eastern states—were washed out by Bobby’s torrential rains. A week-long halt in traffic created massive shortages of food, medical supplies, and building materials on the west coast and severely restricted the speed and effectiveness of rescue operations. As the cyclone continued to penetrate inland, further floods in the north and northwestern reaches of the state isolated several Aboriginal communities, forcing the government to commence a program of aerial food drops to the affected areas.

On the morning of February 26, 1995, as Bobby was first downgraded to a Category 1 cyclone and then completely dissipated into the warm embrace of the spreading high-pressure area, Western Australia’s shaken residents began to tally their losses—and count their blessings. Although virtually every building in Onslow had received some degree of injury from Cyclone Bobby, the devastation could have been much worse. Cyclone Tracy, for instance, had completely leveled 7,200 buildings as it crossed over Darwin, Western Australia, on December 25, 1974. Aside from the seven unfortunate fishers who lost their lives to the opening stages of Bobby’s assault, no other casualties were reported. In addition, while Bobby’s deluging floods were responsible for close to $50 million in property damages to Western Australia, they conversely brought beneficial precipitation to countless farms and mining communities, thus ending a prolonged summer drought that had threatened the region’s economic and agricultural prosperity.