The bureau said the cyclone was projected to make landfall north of the coastal town of Karratha, and it warned of a "very dangerous storm tide as the cyclone crosses the coast" later on Monday night.

Residents in the town evacuated homes for shelters.

"We are asking people to basically put an emergency kit of essential items together - like food and water to last 48 hours, medicines, clothes and then just important personal documents, such as passports," emergency official Nita Gill said in a radio interview.

Woodside Petroleum Ltd., BHP Billiton Ltd/Plc, Santos Ltd and Chevron closed down oil rigs off the coast as they braced for the storm.

BHP Billiton also halted the loading of thousands of tonnes of iron ore from its facility in Port Hedland, but mining and rail operations were unaffected, a spokeswoman, Samatha Evans said.

"It's difficult at this time to determine just where the storm will hit," said Evans, adding that BHP Billiton also shut down its Griffin offshore oil rig.

Woodside said it had shut down operations at its 90,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) Cossack Pioneer and its 9,000 bpd Ocean Legendre oil fields, with detachable rigs being moved out of Clare's expected path.

Woodside also said it was evacuating non-essential personnel from onshore and offshore facilities before the storm hits but said it expected all other production to continue normally, although ship loadings from Dampier have been suspended since the storm could hit the port town.

Chevron Corp. planned to fully halt operations at its 10,000 bpd oil production operation on Barrow Island, but it said key personnel would ride out the storm on the island to prepare a restart once the storm passes.

Santos said it had shut down oil production at its Mutineer-Exeter field as a precaution ahead of the cyclone.