Summary
Tropical cyclone Sharon was the most intense cyclone of the season within the Perth TCWC warning area. Sharon formed in the monsoon trough in a region of upper diffluent easterly flow just to the south of the Indonesian Islands during 13 March. A 10 to 15 m/s middle-level surge to the south of the genesis area in the previous 48 hours may have contributed to formation. There was no indication of a strong cross-equatorial surge. Intensification seems to have occurred as the low moved beneath the upper ridge axis.
The cyclone rapidly intensified to hurricane strength during 14 March while moving on a south-southwest path towards the coastline of Western Australia. A well-defined eye was clearly evident on satellite imagery until early on 16 March. Following cyclone formation a major upper trough intensified over southeastern Australia and extended northwestward, pushing the 500 hPa high over the northern part of the Kimberley. The cyclone was steered southsouth-west around the northwestern flank of the high. By 16 March it had moved into a region of increasing westerly shear (at 2300 UTC 15 March the 850-200 hPa shear near Exmouth, some 550 kilometres to the south-southeast of the cyclone centre, was westerly at 42 rn/s). The cyclone then sheared and was steered away to the west under the influence of the lowerlmiddle-level easterly flow. The weakening cyclone continued to be steered around the northwestern flank of the lowerlmiddle-level (700 hPa) anticyclone.
For more details see the TC Sharon Report (pdf)
Track and intensity
All times in WST - subract 8 hours to convert to UTC.
