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When it crossed the Western Australian coast on Friday afternoon, Tropical Cyclone Narelle became the first storm system in over 20 years to make landfall in three of Australia’s states and territories.

In the preceding week, the severe storm has pummelled communities across far north Queensland and the Northern Territory.

The massive storm first hit far north Queensland as a “high-end” category four cyclone, before reaching the Northern Territory as a category three storm last Saturday and then continuing all the way west to the Indian Ocean.

By the time it approached Perth on Saturday, likely passing east of the capital city, it will have travelled more than 5,500km (3,400 miles).

How common is it for a cyclone to make multiple landfalls?

The last storms to have made landfall in three Australian states and territories were Cyclone Ingrid in 2005 and Cyclone Steve in 2000.

Such cyclones have been historically rare, but when they do occur they tend to take a looping trajectory across Australia similar to Narelle’s path, says Dr Milton Speer, a fellow at the University of Technology Sydney and former Bureau of Meteorology forecaster.

“Instead of going east in the tropical easterly trade winds in the monsoon trough, they get captured by the mid-latitude westerly winds,” he said. “They do take some time to curl around and head south, but when they do get captured they usually move a bit quicker.”

The exact path depends on the circulation patterns of upper-level winds in the Earth’s troposphere – the low layer of the atmopshere where weather occurs.

Narelle would be pushed east by a “an upper-level low pressure trough in the westerlies approaching WA,” Speer said.

The path that Cyclone Narelle has taken “is very unusual, and we do – with any certainty – [only] know of one or two precursors,” said Dr Joseph Christensen, a University of Western Australia historian who studies cyclones and extreme weather in WA.

He noted that reliable meteorological data on cyclones only began in the 1970s in Australia. “How often this has happened before that is really anybody’s guess,” he said.

“The typical West Australian cyclone will form somewhere in the Timor Sea off the Kimberley coast. It might form over the course of several days and then proceed, very broadly speaking, in a south-easterly direction.

“Narelle’s taken almost the exact opposite path moving from east to west.”

Did global heating play a role in fuelling Narelle’s trajectory?

Climate scientists have told Guardian Australia that Cyclone Narelle’s early formation and intensification was likely fuelled by global heating. They have pointed to record ocean temperatures in the Coral Sea in the weeks preceding the storm.

In order to form, cyclones need ocean temperatures to be above 26.5C, as well as favourable atmospheric conditions.

In the Coral Sea to Australia’s east, Narelle moved over an area of ocean that has seen record high temperatures in recent months.

“The Coral Sea has just recorded its hottest December, hottest February, hottest summer, hottest calendar year and even the hottest financial year,” climate scientist Andrew Watkins, an adjunct professor at Monash University and a councillor with the Climate Council, said last week.

Cyclones are becoming more likely to travel far distances from east to west than in previous decades as a result of global heating, Speer said, because there were fewer westerly winds towards the equator.

Global heating also means the rainfall expected from a cyclone is likely to be greater, because a warmer atmosphere can hold more water.

Graham Readfearn contributed reporting.