Top End Wet Season 2021-2022

The rain is hanging on so far this month. Only half way through April and I'm 5mm shy af the average for the whole month. 96mm at home, average is 101.6mm.
Naturally, the second half of April tends to dry off some....

Radar at 4.00pm; Hector firing over on the Tiwi Islands

Gut feeling this storm will miss my suburb of Leanyer

And if we miss out on this one, well there is another behind it !

There is a bit going on to our north in South East Asia

The Gove Peninsular ( north east of the Top End ) has had 350mm rain in the last 36 hours !

Well, nothing happened storm wise today, despite looking good there for a while.
Perhaps this cell out to our east might move through in the eary hours....

The first day in a long long time where the DP has dropped this low....a real 'dry season' feel about the day at 11.30am

From local guru, Pilko
"Good afternoon troops.
Nice and hot in Darwin today in case you haven’t noticed 🤣
In the east tho things are a stirring as a weak low looks to trek SW across the GOC.
The OCC water vapour map shows a lot of activity about Cape York, extending SW into the Gulf.
That will help our rainfall chances next week for us Darwinites. Eastern areas will do better than us and will see earlier action as well.
I have the sprinklers on today so that will draw in the moisture no doubt.
Have a great arvo 👍"


They have failed to take into account the possibility of a west coast cyclone, which often drags moisture away from the Top End
"Will Australia See Its Tenth Tropical Cyclone Of The Season?
( Source: Weatherzone )

A tropical low offshore to the northwest is showing signs of intensification, and may become the 10th tropical cyclone in Australian waters this season.
The tropical low in question is situated to the southwest of Christmas Island, east of the Cocos Islands and about 1600km northwest of Exmouth.

Image: Cloud, lightning and 24hr rainfall showing the tropical disturbance on Saturday morning.

Over the last few days, a trough in the region has been building strength, causing thunderstorms to become more frequent and more intense. In the tropics, when this happens in a concentrated area, the storms often start to slowly spin around one-another. These are the first steps that help to spawn a tropical low.
Overnight, the system has been strengthened by further thunderstorm activity, projecting moisture throughout the atmosphere and forming thick clouds. This includes both low level clouds starting to spiral into the centre (inflow), and very high level clouds spiraling away from the centre (outflow). Some of this high outflow cloud is crossing the Australian mainland today, crossing over Broome and Alice Springs.

While these steps are all very important to the formation of a tropical low, they don’t necessarily mean that the system will turn into a tropical cyclone.

Over the coming days the system will drift towards the Cocos Islands, likely increasing the chances of rain and storms over the islands. Depending on the strength of the low, winds may also start to become quite strong.

As of 12pm Saturday, the tropical cyclone risk is rated as a low (5-20%) chance of formation by the Bureau of Meteorology as early as Monday, with the risk likely to linger for much of the coming working week. If the system does form, it is more likely to do so later in the week.

Image: Surface winds and pressure from ECMWF hinting at possible tropical cyclone formation during the week near the Cocos Islands.

If this tropical cyclone does form, it would be the first one since Tropical Cyclone Charlotte formed on March 21st, and would be forming right at the end of the official tropical cyclone season that ends next week on April 30th.
While this system is unlikely to directly to affect the Australian mainland, warnings can be viewed at Weatherzone here.

Another max temp of 35.2c and DP's as low as 16.8c. The first fires have started out bush
Was a filthy hot and oppressive morning at the Anzac Day Dawn Service around 6.00am. but dried off after noon before the sea breeze raised the dp's again.




Not much activity accross the Top End today.