CANBERRA, March 23 (Xinhua) -- Northern Australia has been warned to brace for a category three tropical cyclone expected to make landfall over the weekend.
Tropical Cyclone Nora formed in the Arfafura Sea, which separates Australia's Northern Territory (NT) and Papua New Guinea (PNG), on Friday morning and was forecast by the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) to transform into a severe system by Saturday.
The BOM on Friday issued a warning for the north-east NT and Queensland's north-west coast.
If the storm makes landfall on Saturday, it will come exactly one week after the category one Tropical Cyclone Marcus caused widespread damage in the NT as the strongest storm to hit Darwin in 30 years.
Rick Threlfall, BOM senior forecaster, said that the storm would intensify rapidly as it moved across the Gulf of Carpentaria; the body of water between the east coast of the NT and west coast of Queensland.
"It's in a good position to intensify through today and should become a category two system by this afternoon as it moves over warm waters," Threlfall told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Friday.
"It will then turn south east through the Gulf and track towards the coast over the weekend -- right down the middle of the Gulf.
"It will become a severe tropical cyclone category three system by Saturday afternoon."
Forecasters were unable to predict the path of the cyclone, saying it could hit either Queensland or the NT but did say that both regions could expect severe weather conditions to develop on Friday evening.
"We're talking about a severe tropical cyclone, so that means we could see sustained winds around the system of up to 150 kilometers per hour (kmph) and destructive wind gusts would certainly be possible over land as well," BOM's Sam Campbell said.
"We're expecting heavy falls to develop during Friday evening but more likely into Saturday morning.
"There's also the possibility of some coastal inundation with the storm surge and that's anywhere in the watch area as well."
