Tropical storm Alfred could cause significant flooding in eastern Australia despite the slowly moving storm no longer being a cyclone.

Millions of people on Australia's eastern coast face destructive winds and heavy rain as the region endures the southernmost tropical cyclone to hit the continent in over 50 years.

Cyclone Alfred weakened into a tropical low Saturday as it neared the rain- and wind-lashed eastern coast of Australia where hundreds of thousands of properties were without power. The former tropical cyclone lay about 65 kilometers off the coast of the Queensland capital, Brisbane, government forecasters said in a final update.