The next “monsoon burst” is unlikely for several weeks.

This is the official view of the Bureau of Meteorology.

Meteorologist Bradley Wood said the Top End was in the grip of a monsoon burst period at the moment.

Mr Wood said the Madden-Julian Oscillation was to blame, a wave of weather which moves around the equator.

This MJO has moved away and will not be back in any strength “for a week or two”.

“It will be a dry couple of weeks in the Top End,” Mr Wood said.

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Lowie is open, unusually.

Inland towns like Katherine can still receive isolated thunderstorms like it did last night, which produced lots of lightning but little rain.

“We had not had a great monsoon burst yet,” Mr Wood said, but he said rainfall totals across the Top End were still tracking above record lows.

Another words, we have had worse wet seasons.

Instead the bureau said the weather had now reverted to 'build-up' like conditions.

Katherine’s maximum temperature is expected to approach new record heat (39 degrees in February) for the rest of the week.

The February rain total so far is 99.4mm against a monthly average of 234.7mm.​

Darwin has seen only 739mm of rain so far this wet season. The wet season average to the end of February is 1270mm

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