The air was dry for the first time in months on Saturday, a perverse trick as moisture is drawn into another storm system bearing down on the Northern Territory.
Tropical Cyclone Narrelle is the seventh high-risk weather event to hit Australia’s north in just five months.
“This is Country and water talking to us, letting us know that we’ve gone too far,” says evacuee and Mangarayi traditional owner Cilia Lake.
“This is our ancestors … punishing all of us for what’s happening all around the Northern Territory. The land clearances, the gas pipelines and the taking of water. It is all connected.”
Narrelle, which was downgraded before midday on Sunday NT time to an ex-tropical cyclone, is expected to dump up to 300mm of rain across the already saturated Top End, after a wet season that’s seen thousands evacuated since the new year.
Flood warnings are in place across much of the Territory. Patients have been evacuated from Katherine hospital. People have been told to leave some hotels.
The Fire and Emergency Services commissioner, Andrew Walton, says after a run of emergency events, even a small amount of rain could have a big impact.
Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email“Significant rainfall will occur in a landscape already saturated from the past few months in the Northern Territory,” he says.
“Katherine and Beswick, you have unfortunately had a dress rehearsal for what is potentially ahead of us. You know the drill. Everything we have seen over the past few months has the potential to be impacted again.”
The wet season across the Top End began early in November 2025 when Tropical Cyclone Fina developed in the Arafura Strait between the Tiwi Islands and Darwin. Labelled one of the earliest wet season cyclones on record, it brought down trees and cut power lines.
Persistent rainfall across the central and Barkly regions has damaged up to 85% of roads, and the Todd River in Alice Springs has flowed continuously for the past month.
In February, it broke its banks twice, flooding the central desert town and again threatening to breach the 3-metre mark last week.
Narrelle comes a week after floods stretching more than 500km inundated communities in the Roper, Big Rivers and Daly regions. An unexpected tropical low dumped more than 100mm of rain on an already saturated river system, sending it over its banks.
As a result, Katherine experienced one of the worst floods in living memory, with some residents along the river losing everything.
“It’s heartbreaking,” one local says. “You feel for people who have lost everything, kids’ clothes and toys just ruined, and chucked away.”
After the 1998 floods, insurance became prohibitive for many in Katherine, with some quotes reaching $20,000 a year.
Heavy rain is now expected from early Sunday afternoon.
“We got caught with our pants down last time, so we’re prepping for everything and hoping for nothing,” says Katherine butcher Jason Scaddon.
Scaddon says since government disaster payments were introduced, including a one-off $611 for adults and $300 for children, his business has sold about seven tonnes of meat. “That sort of spending in town makes a difference.”
However, for remote residents along the Waterhouse and Daly rivers, evacuations, payments and support have looked very different.
“We had to evacuate ourselves,” says Lake.
In early March, police knocked on her door in the remote community of Jilkminggan, 146km south-east of Katherine.
“They said the water was already licking at the bridge into the community and coming up fast. We had to go.”
About 300 residents piled into cars and fled rising flood waters, taking only what they could carry. A further 60 were later transported by boat to Mataranka about 38km south.
It was not the first time Jilkminggan residents had lived through a flood. But it was the first time the community felt abandoned, Cilia says.
“The other times when we are evacuated, it’s only for a day or two, and there is usually a bed and a box of toiletries at an evacuation centre for us. But this time there was nothing.”
Evacuated to Mataranka, the community was placed into what the NT government described as a “shelter”.
The Department of the Chief Minister and Cabinet says in the early stages of the emergency, residents in Jilkminggan and Katherine stayed in emergency shelters, with people asked to bring their own food and supplies for the first few days.
“This is standard practice across the Territory,” the department says. “However, when emergency shelters transition to evacuation centres, meals and accommodation are provided.”
Meals are now provided, but the community is spread across two sites.
Cilia says it was too crowded inside the main hall, with no consideration for cultural practices, forcing residents to buy their own tents and set up temporary homes on the veranda.
Farther west, government and private helicopters were used to evacuate Daly River and Palumpa communities after river rises were predicted to reach the roofs of most homes. Eleven people were unable to reach the airstrip in Palumpa and had to be winched from their homes.
Evacuation centres were re-established in Darwin for evacuees who had only just returned to the West Daly communities after flooding in January.
Despite more than 1,000 people being evacuated, Aboriginal remote communities were initially excluded from the NT government’s disaster payments.
Cilia says once included, her community received just over $150 per adult. “We don’t know why,” she says.
A department spokesperson says: “For remote communities evacuated to other parts of the Territory, payments are staggered so support is available both during evacuation and when people return home. This allows families to replenish fridge and pantry items that would have spoiled while they were away from home.”
“For urban residents evacuated in their own town, such as Katherine River and Darwin River floods, payments were rolled out once essential shops and services re-opened,” they say.
On Saturday, the federal government announced an additional disaster recovery payment, which it said would be paid in one lump sum.
The Northern Land Council chair, Matthew Ryan, says remote communities across the Top End have faced unprecedented flooding.
Some residents faced multiple evacuations, inconsistent levels of care across centres, and concerns about food security.
“We want to see better coordination of the emergency response and more shelters built,” Ryan says.
He wants authorities to include Aboriginal people in emergency management plans.
The federal government’s 2025 climate risk assessment warned that natural disasters across northern Australia would become more frequent, with First Nations’ remote communities most at risk.
“Increases in extreme heat are compounding existing socioeconomic vulnerabilities, such as low income and high poverty rates.”
The Environment Centre NT’s Dr Kirsty Howey says the Northern Territory is experiencing a climate disaster, yet successive governments have invested in fracking.
“The climate science is clear, we can have no new fossil fuel projects and have a livable future,” she says.
“We’re subsidising projects like fracking in the Beetaloo Basin and the Middle Arm gas hub to the tune of billions of dollars, while we can’t even put together enough state resources to run evacuation centres.
“There are different resources provided depending on where you live. In the Northern Territory, it seems possible to turn a blind eye in a way that is not possible in other parts of the country.”
