"Could Be One For The Record Books" Jess From BOM On Cyclone Narelle

Triple M, Robbie and Carly.

Now we're on Cyclone Watch at the moment here in WA.

It's a long way away at the moment,

but apparently this thing is moving.

We're talking to Narell and Bureau of Meteorology

is Jessica Lingard joins us right now

to give us the loadout or the spin on what's going on

around Queensland and potentially here.

Hello Jess, how are you?

Good morning, the spin, a little cyclone pun

for your Friday morning.

Yeah.

Hey, that could be your new segment if you want.

We were talking about this earlier on in the week

and we were looking at this little tropical low

way, way, way in the distance over in Queensland

at the other side of the country.

Little did we know that this thing was going to pick up

so much force that we're going to feel the impact here in WA.

We certainly are, yes.

So this is going to be a well-traveled system

by the end of the weekend.

So it crossed the coast.

This is severe tropical cyclone Narell.

It crossed the coast at about 5am Western Standard time

on the Cape York Peninsula as a category four system.

It was a category five yesterday,

but it managed to weaken a little bit

as it drew closer to the coastline.

It's likely to continue to weaken as it

moves west across the peninsula down

to probably a category two system today.

And then it's going to move into the Gulf of Carpentaria

and head towards the Northern Territory.

Likely to pick up a little bit of strength again

while it's in the Gulf back up to a category three system

before it impacts that eastern coastline

of the top end late tomorrow night.

And then as it moves through the top end,

again, weakening fairly quickly while it's overland.

So likely to be downgraded to a tropical low during Sunday.

And then as it moves closer to WA for our turn,

likely to see some impact starting to be felt

around that sort of north-eastern corner

of the Kimberley region.

So it's going to cut an hour up to Columbaroo.

Potentially as early as late on Sunday,

we'll see some increased rainfall potentially,

some winds starting to get a little stronger.

But definitely the more impactful day

is going to be on Monday as that system moves past.

There are a couple of options here

for this system to take.

If it takes a more southerly route,

it's going to spend more time overland.

So it's going to impact us as a tropical low.

If it moves a little bit further north

and it moves either through the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf,

that body of water between WA and the NT,

or even further north again,

that it could move through the T more C.

It has the potential to ramp back up

to tropical cyclone strength.

So that could mean more impacts for coastal areas,

especially at places like Columbaroo

right on the top of the Kimberley there,

where we could see some increased winds.

The rainfall is likely to be the most impactful

for the region.

Top end forecast have us sitting somewhere around sort of 50

to 150 millimeters at this stage.

But obviously that is subject to change

depending on the path of this system.

So really important with the very inconvenient weekend ahead

of us, that residents in the Kimberley region

are taking responsibility for monitoring the forecasts

for this system across the weekend.

And how that is going to impact us

as we move into Monday, because yeah,

I'm not going to be here to chat on the radio

throughout the weekend to keep you up to date.

So it's your responsibility to make sure

that you know what this system is doing over the weekend.

Absolutely.

And Jess, is this common for a cyclone

to literally travel three states?

We normally see them isolated to kind of one state

at a time that alone three.

Is this some sort of cyclone record?

No, we've had a few cyclone through history

that do the triple visit of all three states.

So it's not unusual, but maybe for something to maintain

its strength and with potential cyclone impacts

across all three jurisdictions.

There was even if you sort of started to drill down

into obviously we have hundreds of models trying to forecast

these, if you looked at individual model outcomes,

this thing potentially had five coastal crossings

depending on where it went.

So it definitely could be one for the record books

but we'll have to monitor to see how it goes.

Not only across the weekend,

but through into sort of the latter half of next week as well.

Yeah, it's going to be an interesting one.

We'll touch base with you next week

to sort of see where we sit on this.

Thank you very much, Jess, for getting involved today

and let's keep an eye on cyclone around.

Absolutely, guys, have a great weekend, stay safe.

Jessica Lee got there from the Bureau of Mediologies.

We continue here on Triple M.