A sandbagged and already-saturated outback town is back on major flood alert as it continues a rollercoaster ride through consecutive storms.
Katherine locals were ready to breathe a sigh of relief after the Northern Territory town of 10,000 residents looked set to dodge major damage from former tropical cyclone Narelle.
But they face another anxious wait after the flood level warning for the nearby Katherine River was upped from moderate to major on Tuesday.
Katherine is bracing in the aftermath of ex-cyclone Narelle, which also has Western Australia on edge as it continues its tour of northern Australia.
The flood peak is expected on Wednesday, with levels to remain high for about 24 hours.
The town is still reeling from houses and businesses being inundated earlier in March in the worst flooding in almost 30 years.
Then came ex-cyclone Narelle which dumped more rain on saturated catchments.
Katherine residents would be feeling concerned with the latest flood level predictions, Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro said on Tuesday.
"This has been a huge rollercoaster for them ... everyone is prepared, and that's the important thing - people know what to expect."
Katherine has backed itself to deal with the latest flooding threat, with locals feeling better prepared following a huge sandbagging operation and establishment of a field hospital.
Vicki Maddox, manager of Katherine's Big4 Breeze holiday park, said their clean-up was on hold until the latest threat passed.
"We don't know what's going to happen and we're not going to go and do all that again because that was so hard," she told AAP on Tuesday.
The park's 12 cabins, bunkhouse, safari tents and office went under in the last flood and all the ruined bedding and furniture had to be thrown out ahead of a repaint.
Ms Finocchiaro conceded weary Territorians were "done with the wet season", however more wild weather could be ahead with another low looming in the Arafura Sea.
Hundreds were forced to evacuate when Narelle hit the NT coast on Sunday, with about 6500 people losing power, water or both.
The township of Adelaide River, south of Darwin, had five houses inundated and the Daly River community was totally submerged.
Hundreds of Daly River people who evacuated to Darwin have been relocated from the showgrounds to more comfortable accommodation at Batchelor, south of the NT capital.
Evacuees from the Gulf of Carpentaria community of Numbulwar were returning home on Tuesday.
The system, which weakened to below cyclone strength after making landfall in the NT, caused much less damage than expected.
It crossed into WA's Kimberley region on Monday, sweeping past the remote town of Wyndham and the Indigenous community of Kalumburu as it tracked southwest.
"We were up to our ankles at one point later in the afternoon, but as always, water around here subsides very quickly," Kalumburu Aboriginal Corporation chief executive Kim Holm told AAP.
Waterways around the coastal town rose overnight, but there was no wind damage to any homes ensuring it was business as usual for the community's 300 residents, Ms Holm said.
"We've got lots of kids having great fun in the muddy puddles," she said.
The system was forecast to cross the coast north of Broome into the Indian Ocean on Tuesday and "almost immediately start re-intensifying", the Bureau of Meteorology said.
The storm could become a category four cyclone, with wind gusts of up to 279km/h, by Thursday as it tracks along the WA coast past Broome and the Pilbara region.
The tropical cyclone is then forecast to curve back towards the WA coast, potentially impacting as far south as Perth on the weekend.
Narelle crossed the coast in far north Queensland on Friday as a severe category four, knocking out power and communications.
However it caused minimal damage as it passed Cape York Peninsula, with power fully restored on Tuesday to the 2000-plus people affected.
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