Cyclone Watch Cancelled With Oma Now Expected To Stay Offshore

Cyclone Oma is packing less of a punch this morning.

The system was downgraded to a Category One storm early on Friday, while a Cyclone Watch for coastal towns from Bundaberg down to Ballina in Northern New South Wales was cancelled.

The Bureau of Meteorology said strong gale force winds were unlikely to reach the coast, with TC Oma now expected to stay offshore.

The storm was forecast to strengthen back to category two later on Friday, before turning sharply north on Saturday and remaining out to sea through the weekend and early next week. 

Abnormally high tides and dangerous surf conditions were expected to continue affecting the South East though.

All Gold Coast beaches remained shut as shores were hammered by the rough waves, while the winds from Cyclone Oma were also being blamed for a number of power outages across the region.

Around 300 homes at Mount Tamborine and Guanaba lost power on Friday morning, after the gusts knocked trees into power lines, while Energex crew were investigating an outage at Ashmore that caused more than a thousand properties to lose power.