Australia's Northern Territory bracing for second cyclone in a week

CANBERRA, March 20 (Xinhua) -- Residents of Australia's Northern Territory (NT) have been warned to brace for a second cyclone in five days.

In the wake of Tropical Cyclone Marcus, the strongest cyclone to hit Darwin in 30 years, causing widespread damage in the NT on Saturday, forecasters from the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) have predicted that a second storm could hit the region as early as Thursday.

Graeme King, a senior BOM forecaster, said that he was "pretty confident" the cyclone would make landfall around Arnhem Land, the region at the northernmost tip of the NT, but it was too early to tell how strong it would be.

"We've identified a weak low coming through Torres Strait at the moment and we're seeing the monsoon trough starting to get more active now through the eastern Arafura Sea," King told News Corp Australia on Monday night.

"We think that low will continue to track westwards and given the conditions in the Arafura Sea in the coming days it should develop further so there's certainly the chance of another cyclone forming some time later this week.

"We just haven't got enough certainty yet in the track of where the cyclone's going to form, all of those things, we'll hopefully be able to nail that down as we go through the week."

Thousands of Territorians remained without power on Tuesday after Marcus brought down power lines and hundreds of trees.

NT Chief Minister Michael Gunner said he was proud of how Territorians had responded to the phenomenon and taken an active role in the clean-up. Enditem