Five disasters in a single wet season show the climate crisis is here and now in the Northern Territory | Kirsty Howey

We’re tough in Australia’s Top End, but there’s a limit to what communities can endure without adequate resources and if leadership isn’t honest about the cause Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast The Northern Territory has always prided itself on being tough. We’re known for facing down extreme heat, isolation and crocs. However, there is a point at which resilience stops being a virtue. And this wet season, we’ve felt invisible to the rest of Australia. Four separate national disaster declarations in a single wet season. And now a fifth disaster, Tropical Cyclone Narelle, is barrelling towards us. The 2025–26 wet season has been unlike anything the Northern Territory has ever experienced. It began with Tropical Cyclone Fina hitting the Cobourg Peninsula and Darwin in November 2025, the earliest cyclone to make landfall on the NT coast since records began, and the most intense cyclone to hit Darwin since Cyclone Tracy. Then came the floods. A tropical low settled over central Australia in late February, with flooding affecting approximately 85% of roads across the Barkly region. This month, Katherine has experienced its highest flood level since 1998. The h