Australia Weather News
Hundreds of remote residents are being evacuated from their small communities by air this weekend, as flooding inundates parts of the Northern Territory.
The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) has a number of flood warnings in place, including an emergency alert for major flooding in Katherine and a major flood warning for the Daly River.
The weather bureau said major flooding is expected at the Daly River Police Station from this evening, with levels expected to reach 14.5 metres on Sunday.
BOM forecaster Shenagh Gamble said the Daly River catchment had seen "heavy rainfall totals" since Friday morning, as floodwaters continued to "rise quite rapidly".
This morning, she said Daly River Police Station — which became "completely isolated" by a separate flood event, less than a month ago — recorded 161 millimetres of rain in 24 hours.
By 4:15pm this afternoon, Daly River had risen to 13.73m.
"We do expect the Daly River at the community of Nauiyu to reach major flooding," Ms Gamble said.
"So it will pass 14 metres this afternoon, and we also expect that river to continue rising through the major flood level."
Palumpa, or Nganmarriyanga, a separate remote NT community, has also been hit with emergency-level flooding.
The two remote Aboriginal communities, Palumpa (Nganmarriyanga) and Daly River (Nauiyu), are both under emergency evacuation orders.
Waterways impact emergency planning
NT Police Incident Controller Shaun Gill said a billabong cuts though the middle of Palumpa, which impacted emergency planning.
"There's two sides of the town, one side is higher than the other," he said.
"The community was evacuated to the high side because that's where we have a normal-weather airstrip, and that was part of our evacuation plan."
Acting NT Police Commissioner Travis Wurst said some Palumpa residents had been trapped by flooding before they could evacuate to the airstrip on higher ground.
"We are going to use a helicopter to do some winching, to recover the last few folks out of that community," he said.
He confirmed a total of 10 adults would be winched from varying places within the community's lower end.
Acting Commissioner Wurst said the speed of Daly River's rising levels presented a "rapid and emerging situation" that forced authorities "to move and act quickly also".
Eight weather stations in the Top End, including Nauiyu's police station, recorded more than 100 millimetres of rain in the 24 hours to 9am this morning.
A further 14 stations, mainly between the Daly region and Darwin, recorded more than 50 millimetres over the day.
Evacuations delayed by weather
Acting Commissioner Wurst said the evacuations, first mentioned by NT Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro yesterday, had been delayed until today.
"The weather was such that it prevented us using any assets available to commence those evacuations," he said.
"The community has been aware of that all along, we've kept that information flowing into the community.
"We'll have everyone out today, the weather is holding for the time being."
It's the second time this year Daly River has been evacuated to the Darwin showgrounds over flooding concerns, with BOM forecasting waters will rise further than the previous event's anticipated peak of 14.5 metres.
Ms Gamble said "extraordinary rainfall" recorded across the catchment would keep flowing downstream towards Nauiyu, so Daly River was predicted to "continue rising over the next week".
"We do expect flood levels of the Daly River community to far exceed previous flood levels," she said.
Commander Gill this morning confirmed Daly River evacuees would be taken to Foskey Pavilion over the weekend.
"We are currently organising a large-scale helicopter retrieval of approximately 400 people from the community," he said.
He said Palumpa was also currently being evacuated by air, and would shelter at the Marrara stadium in suburban Darwin.
"There's six fixed-wing aircraft that are moving approximately 200 people to Darwin," he said.
"Our number one priority is the preservation of life — by moving people early, we are reducing the risk to the community and to our emergency personnel."
Mrs Finocchiaro addressed the media just before 1pm today, and confirmed 34 Palumpa locals were in Darwin so far.
"That's a community of 200, so we've got our work cut out for us today," she said.
She said Daly River's second flood evacuation in the space of a month would be "really difficult for that community".
"They've just been repatriated back home and are now facing significant flooding again," she said.
"I just really want to thank all of our emergency services, who've done an exceptional job."
Flood risk easing elsewhere
An emergency warning for major flooding at Beswick, also known as Wugularr, was also issued last night.
Waterhouse River at Beswick Bridge peaked at more than 9 metres yesterday, with river levels now falling, but the warning remains active.
BOM predicts Adelaide River will also see further rainfall in the coming days, but said "flooding is no longer expected" to hit the town's river.
Ms Gamble this morning confirmed a severe weather warning for the Top End had been cancelled, but the region was likely still in for a wet weekend.
"This means that the widespread heavier rainfalls, that we have seen over the past 48 hours, are backing of," she said.
"The heavier falls are expected to be off-shore and closer to the coast, which brings them away from those large catchments.
"We do still have this monsoon trough across the base of the Top End, with an embedded low, and so we can still expect to see severe thunderstorms with higher totals."
ABC