About: Cyclone Lua

Severe Tropical Cyclone Lua affected a sparsely populated region of Western Australia during mid-March 2012. Originating in a broad low pressure area that formed northwest of Australia by 8 March, the storm was plagued by inhibiting wind shear for the duration of its formative stages. However, it gradually organised, and received the name Lua on 13 March. The cyclone meandered for the first several days of its existence, caught between weak and competing steering currents. After the cyclone drifted northwestward, a building ridge of high pressure to the north drove Lua southeastward toward the Pilbara region. Ultimately intensifying into an upper-end Category 3 severe tropical cyclone with maximum sustained 10-minute winds of 155 km/h (100 mph), Lua made landfall near the remote community