Australia Weather News

Residents along Western Australia's Pilbara coast are celebrating after the passage of Tropical Cyclone Sean left behind a transformed landscape.

The system peaked at category four late on Monday afternoon and has continued to track away from the WA coast in the hours since. 

With emergency warnings being downgraded and only minor damage and flooding reported, locals have largely welcomed the relief from the hot and steamy conditions.

Kirsten Mcalister took her four children to the local park to enjoy the recent rain.

"They love the weather, they love wet season," she said.

"We've been stuck inside for the last little while with the rain.

"It's so good for the kids getting outside, just having fun."

The Mcalister family moved to Karratha from Kununurra six months ago.

"We haven't seen that much water for a long time. It was really quite beautiful," Ms Mcalister said.

"There was a little bit of a worrying time with flooding down the Bulgarra end of town, but once that cleared and everyone is safe and happy we're just enjoying it now."

Happiness on station country

For the owners and managers of Pilbara cattle stations, the rainfall will set them up for the coming season.

Pardoo Station, about 160 kilometres north-east of Port Hedland, recorded more than 290 millimetres of rain across its two monitoring stations since Sunday.

Managing director Jeff McInnery said the rain would allow him to get cattle grazing again after large-scale destocking in recent years.

"We can start to make plans now of what we're going to do to get the cows off the pivots [centre pivot irrigators] and get them back to grazing so we get the pivots back into hay production," he said.

"It's a bloody fantastic start, the couple of showers we had in December and now this month, it's just set us up.

"It looks like there's another cloud band coming through. If it comes through we might pick up another 50mm, which we don't really need to have but we won't say no to."

New warnings pose challenge

Residents said the storm system exposed some teething issues with WA's new system of cyclone warnings.

Under the changes, the old system of blue, yellow and red alerts has been replaced by the language used in bushfires: advice, watch and act, and emergency.

Craig Kitson has lived in Exmouth for 25 years and said the changes had caused confusion among residents.

"Everyone has had [the former system] ingrained in them for so long. I don't understand the need for the change … getting all these text messages, which are probably a little bit extreme, like your life is in imminent danger.

"Everyone knew exactly what was going on before and now everyone has to relearn some system because someone in the government has decided."

Exmouth business owner Steve Riley felt the change was a step forward.

"You get people from down south that come here and don't know what a yellow alert, blue, red alert [is]," he said.

"I think it's really quite good that they're trying to get the warning systems across the state on an even level. So at least everyone knows what's going on."

As the cyclone travelled along the WA coast, wind gusts were recorded at Exmouth's Learmonth Airport over 100 kilometres an hour.

An emergency warning was issued for Exmouth with residents told to shelter indoors.

Many Karratha residents have questioned why a similar warning wasn't issued for their city, given it also recorded wind gusts over 100 kilometres an hour.

Department of Fire and Emergency Services Pilbara Superintendent Shannon Brophy reassured residents that their feedback about the new warning system would be listened to.

"Whenever anyone does anyone that's new, there are learnings all the way through," Mr Brophy said.

"And we do understand people do get confused with these … and we really encourage the community to give us that feedback because that feedback is important."