Cyclone Narelle crossed Australia's north, intensifying over the Coral Sea and causing significant weather impacts in multiple regions.
Tropical Cyclone Narelle approached northern Queensland, Australia, on March 19, 2026, as captured by the VIIRS instrument on the NOAA-21 satellite, according to NASA Earth Observatory images.
The cyclone made its first landfall on the Cape York Peninsula in Queensland on March 20, 2026, with maximum sustained winds reaching 225 kilometers per hour, equivalent to a category 5 on Australia's scale.
Path and Impacts Across Regions
After crossing Queensland, Narelle weakened but re-emerged over the Gulf of Carpentaria and struck the Northern Territory on March 21, 2026, with winds up to 148 kilometers per hour, bringing more than 100 millimeters of rain to wide areas, as reported by news sources cited in the NASA document.
Australia's Bureau of Meteorology noted that the storm caused minor to major flooding in several rivers, exacerbating conditions from an already severe wet season that had prompted evacuations.
Narelle then moved to Western Australia, making landfall as a tropical low on March 23, 2026, in the northern Kimberley region, with potential for re-intensification off the coast, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.
Sea surface temperatures along Narelle's path were 0.5 to 1.0 degrees Celsius above average, which fueled its intensification, as stated in the NASA Earth Observatory content.
The cyclone's compact structure meant its most damaging winds were limited to areas near its core, and it followed a rare path similar to the 2005 Cyclone Ingrid, which also made multiple landfalls.
