Weather forecasters are split over whether a cyclone will form off the Queensland coast in coming days.

The weather bureau said the tropical low that was looming over the Coral Sea off Far North Queensland on Thursday had a 30 per cent chance of developing into a cyclone.

That’s a slight increase from the 25 per cent likelihood the Bureau of Meteorology forecast earlier in the week.

It said tropical cyclones “can follow erratic paths and predicting their movement is complicated”.

“Scientific understanding of these complex weather systems is still developing,” a BOM spokesperson said.

“We are constantly researching and improving how we predict high-impact weather such as tropical cyclones … [and] our ability to predict cyclone movement has greatly improved over the past few decades.”

The forecast comes as social media weather pages are flooded with their own predictions about whether there will be a cyclone.

On Wednesday morning, popular forecasting page Higgins Storm Chasing said the system had a “reasonable” chance of becoming a category one cyclone within 48 hours.

“A coastal crossing is very likely near Cairns along the North Tropical Coast during Friday with high confidence across global forecast models,” it wrote.

“This system will produce heavy rain, flash flooding and strong to locally damaging winds along the North Tropical Coast from tomorrow.”

Meanwhile, Weatherzone put the likelihood of the low becoming a cyclone over the Coral Sea at about 40 per cent this week.

The Far North Queensland coast is already sodden from consistent heavy falls earlier this week.

Republished from InQueensland