Tropical low may whip up into cyclone off far north Queensland, BOM says

There is a “moderate to high chance” a tropical low currently forming in the Coral Sea off north Queensland will develop into a tropical cyclone, the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) says.

BOM forecaster Shane Kennedy said a cyclone warning could be issued on Saturday morning. 

The next name on the BOM’s cyclone list is Tiffany, following Seth — a tropical cyclone that affected large parts of south-east Queensland this week.

Mr Kennedy said the system was likely to cross the far north Queensland coast between the Lockhart River and Cooktown.

He said the storm would “continue tracking west across the [Cape York] Peninsula during Monday [and] Tuesday,” before “popping back out in the Gulf of Carpentaria, north-west of Kowanyama, late on Tuesday”.

The weather system is then predicted to move quickly across the Gulf of Carpentaria before “potentially making landfall over the Northern Territory”,

If the tropical low does not become a tropical cyclone in the Coral Sea, it likely will do so over the Gulf.

‘Moderate to heavy rainfall’

Mr Kennedy said the weather system would likely bring “moderate to heavy rainfall” of about 50 to 150 millimetres per day across the far north during Monday and Tuesday, as well as some possible “isolated falls in the 200 to 300 millilitre range”.

The north tropical coast could also see similar rainfall in early next week.

Mr Kennedy said flood watches could “potentially” be issued, but likely only if there was rainfall in the 200 to 300mm range.

“The second factor will be — at least at this stage — we expect it to move fairly quickly, so it will most likely be just a day or day-and-a-half where we see that rainfall, so that might limit the chances of flooding,” he said.

“Certainly we could see some flash flooding.”