The monsoon remains in an active phase across northern Australia and stretches across the northern Coral Sea and into the Pacific Ocean. Two tropical lows wrapped in the monsoonal flow are in a race to be named Lucas, Australia's next cyclone. 

The two systems will have very different impacts on Australia. The tropical low to keep a very close watch on is currently (Sunday morning) over land in northwest Western Australia, about 200 kilometres to the south of Broome. This system has already brought heavy rainfall to parts of the Kimberley in the last couple of days. The tropical low is expected to move to the southwest through Sunday and strengthen, bringing heavy rainfall and strong winds to the Pilbara. 

During Monday, the tropical low is likely to move over the very warm Indian Ocean and rapidly intensify to tropical cyclone strength. The cyclone may then quickly reach category 2 strength by Tuesday morning. The cyclone will lead to heavy rainfall and damaging winds for much of the Pilbara coast as it moves west-southwest, hugging the coastline. Make sure to keep up to dates with warnings here as the exact forecast track will continue to change.

The other tropical low, currently (Sunday morning) lies over the northern Coral Sea, about 700 kilometres east of Cooktown. This tropical low is also expected to become a cyclone sometime on Sunday night and will continue to move east, away from the Queensland coast. So, apart from a few showers on the North Tropical Coast of Queensland and some large waves well offshore, this system will have little impact on Australian communities.

Image: The two potential tropical cyclones located off the Queensland coast and over the Kimberley in Western Australia. Image shows mean sea level pressure and precipitation in mm taken from the ECMWF high resolution weather model at 11am EDT Sunday 31 January.

The cyclone activity isn't only confined to Australia. Tropical Cyclone Ana formed to the northwest of Fiji on Saturday afternoon and is moving slowly over the island of Levu this morning.

Oh and in case you are wondering, the system that loses out to Lucas will be named Marian.