Tropical cyclone Jasper which hit Australia weakened into a low pressure system but continued to lash the northeast coast today with flooding rain and left almost 40,000 homes and businesses without power. The cyclone crossed the Queensland state coast late yesterday as a category 2 storm on a five-tier scale that whipped the sparsely populated region with winds of up to 140 km per hour.<br />''<br />''Although the storm was running out of steam by this morning, government meteorologists warned it is still whipping up intense rainfall and damaging wind gusts. According to government meteorologist Angus Hines, several meteorological stations in the area recorded more than 40 centimeters of rain in the 24 hours to this morning. The rain that is coming in now is falling onto places that are already saturated. It's falling onto rivers that are already swollen and running high, she added.<br />