It's a record that no one wants to beat, but the Northern Territory Top End has officially done it. This year marks the latest start to the monsoon season since record-keeping began in the 1950s, and forecasters say there’s no immediate relief in sight.
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00:00For months, air in the Northern Territory's top end has been sticky, hot and humid, producing
00:09a streak of sweltering days that's made history as the latest official start to the
00:15monsoon season.
00:16The last time we saw a monsoon this late was back in 1973, so we are into that extreme
00:22territory but we do have a trough forming up near us during the course of the week.
00:28Instead of the refreshing monsoonal rainfall that typically starts across the top end
00:32in the last week of December, forecasters say Territorians may have to endure stifling
00:37humidity for at least another week, maybe longer.
00:42It'd be nice to see a little bit more cloud cover and that's the other thing that the
00:45monsoon brings.
00:46It brings that cloud cover which keeps those temperatures down.
00:49For growers of fresh produce across the top end, the delayed monsoon can't come soon enough.
00:55I am expecting the rain to come and it never comes and the soil is so dry and dense and
01:04I have to, what do you call, use my water, town water.
01:10If it's too hot, some of the veggies or the kumquat become sunburned, it cooks the skin.
01:21While others desperately want a break from the heat.
01:24I wish it had arrived earlier like normal or whatever it used to be, because I work
01:30outdoors so it's a bit hot.
01:34Forecasters say the NT's monsoon season could start as late as the first or second week
01:39of February, with a low chance of a cyclone developing in the Gulf of Carpentaria next
01:44weekend.
01:45But those hoping for heavy rainfall and thunderstorms will have to wait just a little bit longer.