were hit by bushfires in November and December 2001 and were anticipating the arrival of Bernie, hoping that it will bring rain to extinguish the fires. However, Bernie delivered very little rain to the area. Severe Tropical Cyclone Chris Severe Tropical Cyclone Chris developed on 2 February off the north Western Australia coast. The storm peaked with winds before making landfall to the east of Port Hedland, Western Australia and dissipated overland on 6 February. Chris was responsible for some inland flooding. Severe Tropical Cyclone Claudia The origins of Claudia came from an area of convection which formed east-southeast of Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea on 9 February 2002. The system did not develop further until on 11 February where it began to develop rapidly. The Tropical Cyclone Warning Centre (TCWC) in Brisbane identified the storm as a tropical low east of Townsville, Queensland, while the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) issued a Tropical Cyclone Formation Alert for the system. A couple hours later, the low was upgraded to Tropical Cyclone Claudia by TCWC Brisbane, while the JTWC also upgraded the storm to tropical cyclone status, designating it as Tropical Cyclone 14P. Later that day, the JTWC upped Claudia's peak winds to , after a well-defined eye was spotted in infrared imagery. The very small cyclone was moving southeastwards and continued to rapidly intensify due to good outflow. Early on 12 February, TCWC Brisbane upgraded Claudia to a Category 3 severe tropical cyclone, with estimated peak winds of , while the JTWC estimated peak winds of . Claudia was moving quickly to the southeast towards Fiji's area of responsibility and TCWC Brisbane its last warning for Claudia later that day when it moved east of 160°E out of TCWC Brisbane's area of responsibility; see 2001–02 South Pacific cyclone season. Tropical Cyclone Des Tropical Cyclone Des originated from an area of convection which formed on 3 March east-southeast of Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. Late on 4 March, the Tropical Cyclone Warning Centre (TCWC) in Brisbane initiated warnings for the tropical low as the system's convection deepened. The Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) issued a Tropical Cyclone Formation Alert for the storm, and later upgraded it to Tropical Cyclone 17P at 0600 UTC on 5 March. The cyclone was moving to the east-southeast, steered by a low to mid-level ridge east of the storm. Favourable conditions and good outflow enabled the