Fina, a category three cyclone sitting in the Van Diemen Gulf with wind gusts up to 165kph, was predicted to pass to the north of Darwin, the capital of the Northern Territory, later today as a “severe tropical cyclone”, the nation’s Bureau of Meteorology said.

The cyclone was forecast to hit the region’s remote Tiwi Islands and Cape Hotham, before impacting Darwin, whose residents were being urged to “immediately commence or continue preparations, especially securing boats and property”, the weather bureau said on its website.

The warning for Darwin, population of around 140,000, conjures painful memories of Cyclone Tracy, which wiped out much of the city on Christmas Day 1974, killing 71 people, in what was one of Australia’s worst natural disasters.

A weather bureau senior meteorologist, Dean Narramore said the cyclone was not expected to make landfall, but would likely be felt in Darwin this afternoon.

It was forecast to bring “widespread heavy rainfall and damaging to locally destructive winds,” to the city, Narramore told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

“Staying over water means it’s likely to maintain its intensity,” he added.

The alert comes after ex-tropical cyclone Alfred hit neighbouring Queensland in March, closing schools and leaving hundreds of thousands of people without power.