Tropical Cyclone Fina hits Northern Territory with 200mm rain

Australian Community Media

The weather system was downgraded to a category 1 tropical cyclone on Thursday November 20, 2025, and is expected to to strengthen back to a category 2 on Saturday.

Transcript

00:00Tropical Cyclone Fiena continues to approach the Northern Territory top end coastline ahead

00:05of the anticipated coastal crossing and significant weather impacts it's expected to bring through

00:11the rest of the day on Friday and throughout the course of the weekend.

00:14I'm Angus here at the Bureau of Meteorology, this is a severe weather update about Tropical

00:18Cyclone Fiena and the current time is just about 11.30am on Friday the 21st of November,

00:25that is Northern Territory time.

00:27Here's a look at satellite imagery across the country and of course the Tropical Cyclone

00:30is in the north so that's where we will ground ourselves and this loop here shows the last 12

00:35hours or so of satellite imagery and we can actually see a few different pulses as the

00:40cloud comes up and then subsides, it rises and falls and that's been the story over the past

00:4512 to 24 hours. We haven't seen consistent thunderstorms around the Tropical Cyclone and

00:50in fact we did see a little bit of a weakening to the system late last night. Thursday evening

00:56we went from a Category 2 tropical cyclone to a Category 1 tropical cyclone and that is where

01:01Tropical Cyclone Fiena is currently rated. It is very close to the Northern Territory coast

01:07which means we can actually see the bands of rain on our radar network wrapping around the centre

01:12here. Notice how they're wrapping into a central point somewhere up here, that is the middle of

01:17the tropical cyclone. These bands of rain have already brought over 200 millimetres of wet weather to

01:23parts of this exposed coastline and in the coming hours that rain is only going to get more extensive

01:27and impact new areas. Since we can see on this radar here exactly where the centre of the tropical

01:33cyclone is, we can place it on our map here and we'll now start to look at the forecast track.

01:38This is where this is likely to move in the coming hours and the coming days. It's likely to follow

01:43a south westward trajectory and it is likely to strengthen again from a Category 1 to a Category 2

01:50tropical cyclone before the end of the day on Friday. At that point, Saturday becomes our key day

01:57because this Category 2 tropical cyclone is going to cross the tip of the Coburg Peninsula and move

02:03south westwards through the Van Diemen Gulf, past the Tiwi Islands, get somewhere very near Darwin around

02:08about 10pm on Saturday evening and then through Saturday night and into Sunday continue to move

02:15south westwards into the Gulf here between Northern Territory and Western Australia. This is our

02:21tropical cyclone warning and watch area. We can zoom in a little bit closer to see exactly which areas

02:26are covered in the tropical cyclone warning. Let's start with the warning, that's the orange one,

02:30that's the most important one. That is where we could see the damaging wind gusts develop within the next

02:3524 hours. For some of these northern places, that is going to be within the next six hours or so,

02:40as the winds are already ramping up there. The warning area does include Darwin in the middle here,

02:46it also goes down to Dundee Beach and Batchelor and then it moves across to somewhere east of

02:51Warrawee, including Ganbalanya. The watch area is a little bit further to the south and that includes

02:56the Daly Rivermouth down to Wad Air. Do notice how this is likely to be a Category 2 as it passes

03:03Darwin and may strengthen into a Category 3 following that as it approaches northern parts of

03:08WA. So this is the track, how might that look in terms of the weather we expect this track to bring?

03:14Well the two key words are windy and wet. Those winds are really going to race around that Category 2

03:19tropical cyclone, including as it approaches and moves past Darwin. Wind gusts of over 100 km

03:25an hour are expected across large parts of the top end and exposed coastal areas could see gusts up to

03:30150 km an hour. Likewise there will be extensive heavy persistent rainfall across parts of the north

03:38and west of the Northern Territory once again including that Darwin area. Many regions could

03:44see 200 to 300 millimetres of rain and some spots could even see more than that. That is likely to

03:49lead to significant flooding. This is paused at 10 o'clock on Saturday evening right when the system is

03:55closest to Darwin. If we keep playing the loop into Sunday we'll see it move away from Darwin but it

04:00does start to move towards the Kimberley in Northern WA. This is where we see the potential for some

04:05re-intensification up to a Category 3 as it moves through the warm waters of the Joseph Bonaparte

04:11Gulf here between the two states. Heavy rainfall is going to happen across the territory. The top numbers

04:19are well and truly towards the top of our scale 300 millimetres or more around parts of Darwin, around

04:24parts of the exposed coast. Remember we've already seen 200 millimetres so we know some of these numbers

04:29are going to come through. Damage from wind remains one of the key impacts with any tropical cyclone

04:35given the nature and strength of those winds. That could mean trees down, that could mean power

04:39outages, damage to cars, damage to houses and difficult driving conditions. So do try and minimise travel

04:46when you can over the coming days. Heavy rain can lead to flash flooding and it can lead to the

04:51rivers flooding across northern and western parts of the top end and expect very dangerous conditions

04:56on the coast with rough seas, large waves and elevated tidal levels for anyone who is on or near

05:02the ocean. Forecasts and warnings are being updated every three hours at the moment so do always double

05:08check you've got the latest information and the latest warnings available on the Bureau's website and app

05:13and of course listen to and follow all advice from your local emergency services.

05:17Thanks for watching.

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