Tropical Cyclone Alfred is moving towards Australia’s east coast at “walking speed”, with its delayed approach expected to prolong extreme weather conditions.

Bureau of Meteorology senior meteorologist Angus Hines said Alfred had only moved about 20 kilometres overnight.

“That’s only really bout walking speed which is quite unusual for such a big and powerful system,” Hines told ABC News Breakfast.

Dangerous coastal conditions are expected to worsen as Tropical Cyclone Alfred edges towards the coast at “walking speed”.Credit: Nick Moir

Hines said wind gusts had reached up to 110km/h overnight and were expected to exceed that on Friday as Alfred’s slow approach continued.

“The movement has been slowed down and what that really means is the whole weather event is just going to get dragged out that little bit longer. It’s just going to be prolonged. That means the wind, the rain, the coastal hazards and impacts are going to last that little bit longer before we can start to get over the hump and start talking about the system moving away and clearing,” Hines said.

“That’s still a long way away. We are still on the ramp up. The weather is getting worse as the tropical cyclone approaches.”

Hines said Alfred was expected to cross the coast and bring its worst impacts early on Saturday morning and may not reach the Queensland coast until later in the morning.

“That’s when we’ll see the strongest, most destructive winds and probably the heaviest, most intense, rainfall, which can lead to very significant flooding of our rivers as well as significant flash flooding,” he said.