Cyclone Marcia's rapid rise from tropical tiddler to category five monster in under a day is a remarkable, globally significant event, the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) says.
Cyclone Marcia started Thursday as a category one storm over the Coral Sea but, shortly before midnight, it reached category five, with peak gusts of 285km/h and as it roared ashore near Yeppoon Friday morning.
Forecasters at the Brisbane Tropical Cyclone Warning Centre were forced to issue rapid-fire warnings as the cyclone strengthened.
BOM Queensland regional director Rob Webb says its too early to say why Marcia intensified so fast but meteorologists across the globe are anticipating the BOM's detailed analysis of the storm.
"Rapid intensification (of cyclones) is of interest around the world. We want to be able to give people as much lead time as possible (before a cyclone hits)," he told AAP.
"The meteorological community around the world will be interested in this kind of storm."
Mr Webb said cyclones typically increase in intensity by one category a day, on average.
"We are talking about something that went from category two to category five pretty quickly yesterday," Mr Webb said.
"It certainly intensified more quickly than any cyclone in recent times that has impacted Queensland."
Cyclones are notoriously difficult to forecast but this is especially so for a physically small cyclone such as Marcia, which Mr Webb said can respond strongly to small environmental changes.
Although equal in intensity, Marcia was much smaller than Yasi in 2011, the last category five cyclone to hit the Queensland coast.
"Sometimes with small systems they can intensify quite rapidly and can decay quite rapidly, so we were monitoring it and making sure we could give people the best possible lead time through the afternoon," Mr Webb said.
"Sometimes, even with the best science that we have, these cyclones do intensify differently. We will go back and study it and see what we can learn from it because it certainly was a remarkable event."
BOM was on top of the changes and rapidly issuing updated warnings as Marcia intensified, Mr Webb said.
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