A large swathe of Australia’s east coast is preparing for strong winds and life-threatening flooding as a tropical cyclone is forecast to make landfall around the nation’s third-largest city.

An Australian warship has rescued a Lithuanian solo rower who ran into a tropical cyclone while attempting to cross the Pacific Ocean from California.

Tropical cyclone is the catch-all term for the powerful, spinning storms that feed off warm oceans and the strength of which is determined by wind speeds. The strongest are known as hurricanes in the Atlantic and typhoons in the Western Pacific and simply tropical cyclones in the South Pacific.