Natural hazard risk is assessed by leveraging, among other things, the historical record. However, if the record is short then there is the danger that risk models are not capturing the true envelope of natural variability. In the case of tropical cyclones in Australia, the most reliable observational record spans less than 50 years. Here, we use a much longer (ca. 6000-year) chronology of intense paleo-cyclones and, for the f...