Severe Tropical Cyclone Maila. Currently around 900 km east of Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea.

It's now starting to move towards the west south-west, and likely to impact parts of far northern Queensland early next week.

And firstly, we can see that on the satellite image a very organised and well structured tropical cyclone out in the Solomon Sea. As you can see, a long way away from the Queensland coast. We can really see this cyclone when we look at the water vapour imagery.

Now, over the last few days it's been category four and category five. It's currently a category four system.

Now, it's a small system, but it's an organized system and you can see this eye feature here, right in the middle and that tells us it is a very organized system, still a long way away from the Queensland coast but over the last few days it's been sitting in the Solomon Sea but we have starting to see a westward track in the last few hours, and that's thanks to the main steering influence being this big upper-level high pressure system over the Coral Sea it's now interacting with this cyclone and will start moving it towards the west and then south-west in the coming days towards the far northern Queensland coast.

Now, we can look at all of that in more detail with the current track map. As I mentioned, Severe Tropical Cyclone Maila, currently a category four system, is starting to move towards the west north-west and then south-west as we move through Friday and Saturday and that's going to impact residents and communities around some of the Solomon Islands, and may even impact far southern parts of Papua New Guinea.

Then, as we move into the weekend and then early next week, we're going to see that track towards the west south-west. Also note, the cone of uncertainty does get larger as we move into that day four and day five timeframe and that's because there's still a range of scenarios of exactly where Tropical Cyclone Maila will track.

Many have it coming towards northern parts of the peninsula district, you know, north of about Cooktown, maybe around the Lockhart/Coen River area. But some model guidance does have it a little bit further south towards the Cooktown area and that's what we'll be watching closely in the coming days as we get a better handle on exactly the track and the intensity of Tropical Cyclone Maila as it continues tracking towards the west south-west.

But as it does so over the next few days, we're not expecting much rainfall or wind impacts through much of the Queensland coast. So, here it is this afternoon and into Friday, and notice – pretty dry, with light to moderate winds for much of the Queensland coast on Saturday, on Sunday and even on Monday as it approaches the coast we're still looking at fairly calm conditions across coastal parts, and at this stage, it's probably not later into Monday into Tuesday where we could start seeing more stronger impacts for the Queensland coast.

Another way I could show you this is with our total rainfall. Now, looking at rainfall from now until Monday morning, you'll notice that almost no rainfall is expected for much of northern Queensland and that's thanks to this cyclone sucking all that weather away from the coast due to those southerly winds wrapping around. So, it really isn't until Monday, into Tuesday we'll start seeing impacts to much of the northern Queensland coast.

So to reiterate, Severe Tropical Cyclone Maila, currently a category four system, finally starting its west south-westward track today and in the coming days, and then more westerly as we get into the latter part of the weekend and into the early next week, with possible cyclone impacts somewhere between Cooktown and the Lockhart River, even Thursday Island, early next week, particularly Monday and Tuesday.

So, if you live in far northern Queensland or know someone that does, make sure you stay up to date with the latest forecasts and warnings via our website and app. Track maps are being issued every six hours.

And as we get into the weekend and early next week, if we still expecting the impacts in Queensland, we could see Watches and Warnings issued, so please stay up to date.

And as always, we'll continue to keep you updated here at the Bureau.