I recall when I was a kid the way I remembered which way cyclones and hurricanes went was I thought of a hurricane as an 'anti-cyclone', so it was anti-clockwise, and therefore cyclones were clockwise.
I lived in Karratha (the major town that looked to be in the path of Glenda) for a couple of years as a kid, and cyclones were a regular, slightly exciting, event. For one thing they brought rain - about the only time it ever did rain. And more importantly we got a day off school
Cyclones on this side of Australia (I'm from the West) track south down the coast and come across an awful lot at Mardie. Those poor buggers get wiped out on a regular basis. Something to do with the lay of the land etc. Glenda crossed at Mardie.
While I can recall cyclones circling around a bit, it has never been more than a few hundred km's - I seriously doubt that a cyclone could travel 1000kms north to Bali when it is already close to the WA coast.
The most unusual one was Alby, which traveled down the coast all the way to Perth and crossed just south of Perth. That is a long, long way south for a tropical cyclone. Usually it would have either crossed the coast in the north and/or turned into a tropical low well before getting to Perth. But it was only a category 2, so really no worse than a big winter storm. I suppose it would be like a hurricane getting all the way to New York??
On the east coast, like Mardie in the West, Innisfail is in 'cyclone alley' - it gets more than it's fair share of cyclones crossing there. That's the town that was devestated couple of weeks ago.
Anyway it was good that Glenda didn't cause to much damage, crossing in a fairly unpopulated area. Worrying to get two of the biggest cyclones on record just a couple of weeks apart, and on different coasts.
