The monsoon trough and Ex-TC Ellie are setting the scene for a wet and windy end of 2022 and start of 2023 in northern Australia. Although people living in this part of the world know well how wet it can get at this time of year, it is worth taking a look at the forecast, particularly with an Ex-Tropical Cyclone hanging around the area and potentially re-intensifying into a tropical cyclone next week if conditions allow. 

A strong monsoonal flow developing across the tropics will continue for the next several days, and is forecast to bring heavy rainfall across northern WA, the NT and northern QLD. 

Damaging winds gusting of up to about 90 km/h may occur over northern parts of the NT Top End. With Ex-Tropical Cyclone Ellie currently lying over the Kimberley region and deepening over the coming days, winds in excess of 90 km/h are possible over northern and inland parts of the Kimberley.  

Although the most likely scenario for Ex-TC Ellie is to remain over land during these coming days, there is a chance that this system may track southwest or west, offshore, during the first days of January, where it risks to re-develop into a tropical cyclone by mid-next week. 

Whatever the case, heavy rainfall is set to soak northern parts of the country in the coming days with accumulated rainfall that may amount to 600-1000mm by the end of the first week of January 2023. This might set up some wet records for the month for some locations across northern Australia.

Image: Accumulated rainfall to January 8th 2023, according to ECMWF.