Severe Tropical Cyclone Narelle is bringing heavy to intense rainfall, damaging to destructive winds and a dangerous storm tide to north-western WA. I'm Christie at the Bureau, and we're going to take a look at where the storm is right now. So Severe Tropical Cyclone Narelle is just off the north-west coast of WA. We can see a very symmetrical storm, this means a very intense storm with a very clearly defined eye, and that eye is moving southwards, just skirting the north-west capes as it moves along the coast of WA. And it has brought very significant impacts to the north-west of WA so far this morning.

In the last 12 hours, we've seen some wind gusts as high as 200 km/h at Learmonth, up to 163 km/h at Thevenard Island, 161 km/h at Barrow Island, and Onslow has seen 150 km/h wind gusts. We've also seen some very significant storm tides at Exmouth and Onslow through the morning period.

Now looking at our warning area, this orange area is our warning area. We are expecting the system to track in a south-easterly direction over the course of the day. It's expected to make landfall somewhere around Coral Bay, most likely in the middle of the day, AWST, and then make its way inland into the Central West and eventually down into the South West Land Division. It's likely to be a Category 3, as it moves past Carnarvon and Denham and approaches Kalbarri. As it moves further south, it will weaken to a Category 2 as it comes past Kalbarri and Geraldton, most likely becoming a Category 1 as it moves inland of Dongara. After that, it will drop below tropical cyclone strength as it moves across the South West Land Division, eventually exiting Western Australia around tomorrow night. And that will be finally the end of Tropical Cyclone Narelle.

Now through this warning area, we are expecting to see damaging to destructive winds. Now that is likely to be winds of 120 km/h to over 200 km/h, and we may even see very destructive winds through northern parts reaching 260 km/h. We're also likely to see heavy to intense rainfall that is likely to bring flooding, flash and potentially riverine flooding. We do also have Flood Watches out, and also we're looking at that dangerous storm tide. The storm tide is most likely on the northern side of the system as it moves southwards, so really most likely in the northern coastal parts of this warning area.

Now once the system is no longer a tropical cyclone, we won't be having Tropical Cyclone Warnings, but it will still bring heavy rain and damaging winds as it moves through the South West Land Division. So we're likely to see a Severe Weather Warning issued for the South West Land Division for tomorrow as the system moves through. So how much rain are we expecting? Well initially, we're going to see the heaviest rainfall today through the north-west of the area, particularly looking at these purple and black areas. That's where we could see 150 mm or more. Notice also some showers and storms down in the south-west. Now this is not likely to cause significant impacts today, however what it will do is pre-wet the catchments, so that will mean that it is more likely that any heavy rain from Tropical Cyclone Narelle is more likely to cause flooding through these catchments that have already seen some rainfall today.

So moving through tomorrow, that system will move southwards, dragging that heavy rainfall down through central parts and into the south-west of the state before leaving the state tomorrow night. So Tropical Cyclone Narelle is a very severe system at the moment, Category 4. We are looking at very significant impacts for the north-west. We are updating our forecasts every hour to keep you up to date with the latest movements and expected track. You can find that on our website or the BOM Weather app, and of course we'll keep you updated on our social media. Make sure you follow all advice from your local emergency services. Stay safe and we'll see you in the next update.