The weather bureau will have the ability to better track cyclones like Marcia once it gains access to Japanese satellite imagery mid-year.
The Bureau of Meteorology received hourly images of Cyclone Marcia as it approached the Queensland coast and intensified rapidly last week, allowing warnings to be passed on to emergency services and the community.
While bureau head Rob Vertessy believes that was enough to be "reasonably confident" about Marcia's intensity, new technology will improve accuracy.
From July, the bureau will receive satellite images of cyclones every 10 minutes and with four times better resolution from Japanese technology.
"Our job is going to be a lot easier," Dr Vertessy told a Senate estimates hearing in Canberra.
"But for the time being we've got to use what we've got."
Despite receiving images every 10 minutes, the bureau isn't planning to change its hourly cyclone warning system due to the complexity of collating information.
However, its Twitter account is being used as a tool to provide "situational awareness" outside formal warnings.
More than 1500 houses in Yeppoon and Rockhampton have been damaged and thousands remain without power in the wake of Cyclone Marcia.
The absence of any deaths was a "massive relief", Dr Vertessy said.
Senior hazard protection official Alasdair Hainsworth said Cyclone Marcia's "extraordinary intensification" to category five was unlike any he'd seen before.
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