The monsoon trough is deepening over northern Australia and is set to bring heavy rainfall and frequent gusty thunderstorms to parts of WA, the NT and QLD this week.

The deepening monsoon trough and associated convective activity have already caused and increase in rain over the last few days, and allowed a couple of low pressure systems to develop.

One of these low pressure systems formed to the north of the Kimberley late last week. While there were indications that this low could become a tropical cyclone, this now looks unlikely, with the low’s proximity to land restricting its development. The system is expected to weaken on Monday and has a very low chance of developing into a tropical cyclone.

The satellite image below shows another tropical low to the northwest of the Cocos Islands on Monday morning. This low may briefly move into Australia’s Western Region on Tuesday, before moving west again out of the region. This system will pose no direct threat the mainland of Australia and is also unlikely to develop into a tropical cyclone.

Image: The satellite image shows a low pressure system to the northwest of the Cocos Islands on Monday morning, highlighted by the green circle.

However, while tropical cyclones look unlikely this week, the lows and monsoon trough will still enhance rainfall and bring severe storms to a broad area of northern Australia, extending from the Kimberley, across the northern NT and into eastern tropical QLD.

The image below shows this week's forecast accumulated rainfall, with large rainfall totals expected across northern Australia. Active periods of the monsoon like this typially cause widespread weekly rainfall totals of more than 100 millimeters, with some places likely to see several hundred millimeters by the end of this week.

Image: Forecast weekly accumulated rainfall to 11pm AEDT on Sunday, January 30, according to the ECMWF model.

The main threats during this week’s monsoon burst will be heavy rain, flooding, lightning and damaging winds.