We previously developed, described and analysed a database of severe (i.e., categories three, four and five combined) tropical cyclones (TCs) making landfall in a 1600 km coastal strip in northeastern Australia, extending south from near Cairns. Here we update this database to include seven more recent TC seasons to produce a record from 1872/73 to 2017/18, the longest reliable historical record of TC activity in the southern hemisphere, and one of the longest in the world. We also describe and assess information not available to us in our original study that leads us to include seven additional severe TCs during the earlier period. The conclusions drawn using the new data set are consistent with our earlier findings: land-fall numbers in this new and improved data base are shown to be well-simulated as a Poisson process (with a similar overall average of 3.6 landfalls/decade); landfalls occurred much more often in La Niña years (average=4.9 landfalls/decade) than they did in El Niño years (2.7 landfalls/decade); multiple landfalls occurred in six cyclone seasons since records began for the Southern Oscillation Index (1876/77), and all six seasons occurred in La Niña years; and decadal variability in ENSO drives some of the decadal variability in land-fall numbers (correlation coefficient=0.5, which is statistically significant at the 95% level). The declining linear trend in the number of landfalls identified previously has continued (from about 5.4 landfalls/decade in the early 1870s to about 2.0 landfalls/decade in recent times – a 63% decline) and is now statistically significant at the 98% level. Only 12 landfalls (i.e., 29 % of all landfalls) occurred on or south of Fraser Island in the most densely populated part of the domain considered. Remarkably, the last of these landfalls occurred 42 years ago in February 1976.