Australia's Queensland state is facing one of the worst cyclones in its history, bringing wild winds and potentially devastating rainfall to areas still awash with floods. Queensland Premier Anna Bligh today said Severe Tropical Cyclone Yasi, a monster storm brewing on the Coral Sea, is on track to reach category four out of a five-point scale by the time it hits the Queensland coast early Thursday. Forecasters said La Nina-spurred Yasi was expected to pack winds in excess of 260 kilometres per hour and bring intense and prolonged rainfall across a wide swathe of the flood-hit northeast. The Bureau of Meteorology issued a cyclone warning covering a mammoth section of Queensland's coast stretching some 900 kilometres -nearly the length of Britain. Quensland is still reeling from a record deluge and floods that have destroyed tens of thousands of homes and killed more than 30 people this month, and Bligh warned of further pain for shattered communities.