A wet start to the Northern Territory’s dry season, smashing records

ABC NEWS (Australia)

There's been a not so dry start to the Top End's dry season with rain drenching much of the Territory over the past 24 hours. The big falls have smashed some records, as the unseasonably late rain puts a dampener on dry season activities.

Transcript

00:00Darwinites awoke to an unexpected sound this morning, the pitter-patter of rain coming

00:08as a shock to the dry season system.

00:11We usually expect like no rain for nine months and then we get this, I woke up this morning

00:17and I had no idea what was going on, my partner thought that our aircon had broken.

00:21It's a dry season but it's still raining, but not bad, it's very good, I feel so cold.

00:27A shower is not entirely unheard of for this time of year, May is a transitional month but

00:34the scale of the rain is unprecedented.

00:37For May it's a little bit unusual because we've come out of the wet season so we're no longer

00:41getting the big monsoon bursts or the tropical lows coming on shore and we haven't quite

00:46got into that winter pattern where we do normally see these north-west cloud bands.

00:50The sheer amount of rain that's fallen, breaking records in multiple locations.

00:56It was not only Catherine's wettest day in May ever, it was also the wettest day overall

01:02since December 2003.

01:04Tyndall recorded 179.8 millimetres which was a record for May.

01:10The previous record for May was only 19.6 millimetres.

01:14So the rainfall at this Fort Catherine area was really, really intense.

01:20Further north, the rain put a dampener on dry season festivities.

01:25Some artists taking part in the street art festival forced to put down the paint this

01:29morning, others got lucky.

01:32Oh my gosh, I was laying in bed thinking like should I go but then I decided to come and

01:38luckily this wall, completely undercover, everything out there was just absolutely drenched.

01:44By midday the rain had cleared and it's looking set to stay this way as dry season conditions

01:49return over the weekend.

01:51There is a possibility that a rain band in WA could cross into the NT later next week.

01:58A wet start to the dry.

02:00A wet start to the dry.

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