Cyclone Helen first of the NT Cyclone Season

[gaa_ian]

The anticipated Cyclone has just been declared TC Helen Cat 1.
Darwin is under Cyclone warning & we are certainly in for a wet weekend here in Gove.

[Ric]

Batten down the hatches Ian, hope it doesn't get too rough up there.

Cheers

[gaa_ian]

Well, we survived the Passing of Ex TC Helen with some broken tree branches and a 6 hr blackout !
I recorded a Maximum wind gust of 44.3 Kph at 5:30 am today, while at the Gove AP weather station they recorded a max gust of 72 Kph at the same time.
Interestingly this exceeds that max gust around the low of 65Kph that were forecast at that time and it was at the least 70km to the south of us at the time.
I hope that is the last cyclone for the season, but somehow I doubt it.

[ballaratdragons]

I have been watching Nhulunbuy on all the weather maps to see how you would go, Ian. Glad to hear it has passed without major damage and you are OK :thumbsup:

[Outbackmanyep]

I'm glad Helen didn't take the house and contents!

[gaa_ian]

Thanks Guys
It is certainly a very active monsoon trough this season.
Not just for the far north either !

[Exfso]

There was no way that Ex Cyclone was going to do much, it was moving far to fast to gather energy. Nevetheless, they can be scary systems. It did not even reform over the waters of the gulf. It will, however be interesting to see what happens once the monsoon trough reforms over the top end/waters to the north.