A category four tropical cyclone with destructive winds in excess of 250km/h has made landfall in Far North Queensland.

A rapidly intensifying storm is poised to sweep across the U.S., threatening widespread disruption for nearly 200 million people.

What does the weather term mean, how do the storms form and why are they so dangerous?

Tropical Cyclone Narelle is currently a very dangerous Category 5 storm, sitting off the Far North Queensland Coast some 350 kilometres northeast of Cooktown. Formed in the Coral Sea, Narelle is packing a punch,

The storm, which made landfall this week in Libya, is fairly infrequent, with only a dozen forming between 1982 and 2003.

Satellite imagery recently showed what looked strikingly like a tropical cyclone barreling toward Alaska.