Tropical Cyclone Kirrily is well and truly on her way, and as areas from Innisfail to Sarina prepare for the category three system to make landfall, one city has been left in the dark.
As of 3pm, Kirrily was upgraded to a Category Three, on trajectory north of Townsville , turning northward from its previous landfall destination near Ayr around 1pm.
Mackay residents were dismayed early Thursday morning to see the Bureau of Meteorology radar out of action once more - an inopportune time when all eyes are glued to cyclone warning forecasts in preparation for impending risks.
After six months of no radar, BoM completed the upgrade to the Mackay Harbour facility in December - ahead of ex-Tropical Cyclone Jasper.
A notice on the BoM website at 4.51am stated that the radar was "unavailable" due to "technical or equipment problems".
"The Mackay Radar has been upgraded and is still undergoing standard testing and data quality assessment," the notice read.
"During this time, the radar may be subject to intermittent outages or image quality issues."
Damaging wind gusts have hit Mackay and the Whitsundays, with rain falling across the region throughout the day.
A BoM spokesperson said the bureau's forecasts and warnings were "not impacted by this outage and continue to be published on the Bureau's website and on the BoM Weather app".
"Bureau technicians are investigating and working to have the Mackay radar back online as a matter of priority," the spokesperson said.
"The Bureau's weather forecasts and weather warning service has been designed so that it is resilient and not dependent on any one piece of equipment.
"Radars form only one part of the Bureau's observing network. Forecasts and warnings for all regions are based on a combination of many different observing systems including satellites, automatic weather stations, radars, rain gauges, and hydrological monitoring stations.
"The composite nature of these systems allows specialist staff to monitor approaching weather and issue forecasts and warnings.
"The Bureau's MetEye service also provides publicly accessible images showing temperature, rain and wind information."
Residents expressed their outrage with the outage on social media.
"Why would they run tests that take it off line with a cyclone in the area?" Wendy Jensen said.
"Hopeless. More money down the sewer," Peter Pridmore said.
"If it wasn't so serious this would be funny," Bob Joy said.
"This is disappointing we have a major weather event with a cyclone. The BOM needs to do better," Melody Craig said.
Overlapping imaging of Mackay can be found through the Gladstone, Emerald and Bowen radar.
Sustained winds near the centre of the system are 120km/h, with wind gusts up to 165km/h.
Kirrily is currently 155km east north-east of Townsville, and 320km north north-west of Mackay, travelling at 22km/h.
According to the Bureau, as of 2.30pm January 25, Tropical Cyclone Kirrily was sitting approximately 220km northeast of Townsville, moving towards the coast.
At 2pm, Bowen residents were reporting 80km/h winds.
BoM predicted 100km/h winds during the day for the area, and up to 140km/h from Cardwell to Proserpine later this evening.
TC Kirrily is expected to cross the coast around 10pm near Townsville, then move west-southwest into interior Queensland towards Charters Towers.
"Damaging winds have already been felt in the Whitsunday Islands, and out over the reefs to the northeast," a BoM spokesperson said.
"This afternoon and this evening, it is expected that damaging to destructive wind gusts will spread throughout the Tropical Cyclone Warning area, which stretches from Innisfail to Sarina, including Townsville, Mackay, Bowen, and the Whitsunday Islands.
"Heavy rain and thunderstorms will also impact this warning area, with the largest rainfall totals expected near, and just north of, the tropical cyclone crossing point."
