Two sodden cyclones fuel higher rainfall totals than usual this wet season

Tropical cyclones Ilsa and Ellie bookended the wet with huge dumps of rain to cause devastating floods to many areas.

But most pastoralists are today saying the heavy rain also sparked heavy pasture growth in areas like the critical Barkly Tablelands.

Rainfall was 47 per cent above the long-term average - the highest wet season total since 2010-11 and the sixth-highest on record.

The official end of the northern wet season was April 20.

The Bureau of Meteorology said cyclone activity was well below the long-term average of 11 cyclones each wet but those which developed in the monsoonal troughs were stronger than usual.

The 2022-23 season total of seven was the lowest since 2015-16.

Five of the seven cyclones were category three or higher with three reaching the highest category five intensity.

It was the first time this many were recorded since the 2005-06 wet.

First came TC Ellie which spun out of a monsoon trough over the Northern Territory just before Christmas.

After making landfall just west of Darwin, the system was downgraded to a tropical low which was so powerful and erratic it dumped large amounts of rain across the nation.

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Highways were cut across the Top End and people evacuated from their homes.

Ellie was so powerful it sparked a heatwave by funnelling hot air to the southern states.

Ellie dumped almost 250mm at Timber Creek near the WA border in 24 hours.

NT emergency services described it as a "one in a 50 year rain event".

Then the system spun back to Broome in WA where it caused flooding as well.

TC Ilsa, which crossed the Pilbara coast of Western Australia in April, was the first category five system to make landfall in Australia since 2015, and the first for WA since 2009.

Winds from the mighty system gusted to 285kmh.

This wet season was characterised by high rainfall and moderate to low temperatures, BOM said.

Maximum temperatures were 0.25 °C below the 1961-90 average, while the minimum temperature was 0.31 °C above the long-term average, or the lowest since 2011-12.

As dry season conditions become further established over northern Australia, seasonal changes act to shift the focus of tropical weather further north.

In the coming month, monsoonal conditions are likely to develop close to the Indian subcontinent, in the lead-up to its annual wet season.

According to the bureau, another significant change will be the increase in tropical cyclone activity over the western North Pacific Ocean, which typically has its peak period between July and October.