Cyclone Alfred is set to bring damaging winds and heavy rain to Australia's east coast when it makes landfall as a category 2 storm later this week. It's the first cyclone to hit the region in since Cyclone Zoe in 1974.

Millions of residents along Australia’s eastern coast are preparing for the impact of the most southerly cyclone to threaten the region in more than five decades. Tropical Cyclone Alfred is expected to make landfall late Friday or early Saturday with the strength of a category 1 Atlantic hurricane,