CYCLONE MONICA 19 APRIL 2006

Severe Tropical Cyclone Monica caused significant impact on the Australian coast in April 2006. It crossed the Queensland east coast south of Lockhart River as a Category 3; moved into the Northern Territory and impacted on the small islands north of the Arnhem Land coast as a Category 5; before finally making landfall on the northwest Arnhem Land coast, just 35km west of Maningrida as a Category 5 cyclone.
Monica was a small cyclone in size, but very intense, not unlike Cyclone Tracy that devastated Darwin in 1974. For this reason, communities more than 100km from Monica's path (like Nhulunbuy) were affected only slightly. Generally, large rainfall totals were experienced within 100km of Monica's path, however some of the largest totals (eg 261mm in 24 hours at Kidman Springs in the Victoria River District) occurred long after Monica made landfall, and was a weakening tropical depression overland in the Northern Territory.

Cyclone Monica became the strongest storm of the 2006 Australian cyclone season with wind gusts reaching 350 kilometers per hour (215 miles per hour) as reported by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology’s Cyclone Warning Centre. The Category 5 cyclone hit along the sparsely populated coastline of the Northern Territory, sparing the city of Darwin. Monica originated in the Coral Sea below the southeastern tip of Papua New Guinea, becoming a minimal tropical storm on April 17, 2006. The storm tracked due west towards the Cape York Peninsula in Queensland, where it came ashore just south of Lockart River on the afternoon of April 19 as a Category 3 cyclone. Monica weakened as it crossed the peninsula, but when it reached the warm waters of the Gulf of Carpentaria on the other side, it re-organized and re-intensified.