JOHN

History

Tropical Cyclone John was a short-lived and comparatively weak system that developed off Western Australia's Kimberley coast in late January 1989. Its precursor tropical low formed within an active monsoon trough off the West Kimberley coast on 26 January and drifted westward across warm waters, organising sufficiently for the Bureau of Meteorology's Perth Tropical Cyclone Warning Centre to name it John on 27 January, when it lay roughly 350 km north-northwest of Broome.

Steered by a ridge to its south, John then tracked west-southwestward on a path roughly parallel to the Pilbara coastline. It reached its peak as a Category 1 system on the Australian scale on 28 January, with a minimum central pressure near 990 hPa, maximum sustained ten-minute winds of about 75 km/h and gusts to around 100 km/h. Increasing easterly vertical wind shear soon stripped the deep convection away from the low-level circulation, and John weakened to a remnant tropical low on 29 January about 250 km north of Port Hedland. The shallow swirl drifted west-southwestward and dissipated over open water off the North West Cape.

The cyclone never brought its core ashore. Coastal communities recorded only higher tides and squally monsoonal showers, while marine gale warnings over the North West Shelf briefly interrupted shipping and offshore oil and gas activity near Dampier and Karratha. No deaths, injuries or structural damage were reported.

Sources: Bureau of Meteorology report Wikipedia