Soon-to-be Tropical Cyclone Owen may approach the west coast of Cape York Peninsula later this week and could make landfall as a severe tropical cyclone on Friday.

On Tuesday morning, Ex-Tropical Cyclone Owen was located over the eastern Gulf of Carpentaria and was moving slowly towards the west. The system is forecast to meander around the Gulf during the next three to four days, allowing it to draw energy from balmy waters in the region and strengthen progressively.

Owen is likely to develop into a tropical cyclone on Wednesday and could reach category three intensity by Friday, making it a severe tropical cyclone on the Australian scale.

There is fairly good model consensus that Tropical Cyclone Owen will make landfall somewhere along the southern or eastern coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria later in the week, most likely on Friday or Saturday.

The system could then spread heavy rain, thunderstorms and strong winds across northern, central and eastern districts of Queensland between Friday and early next week. While there is still a lot of room for change in the forecasts this far out, a number of computer models indicate that much of Queensland could be affected by Owen during the next seven days. This includes central parts of the state that were plagued by record-breaking bushfire weather and heat in late November.

Visit http://www.bom.gov.au/cyclone/index.shtml for the latest tropical cyclone advisories.