What is tropical climate?

Tropical climate in Australia is hot and humid year-round, with high rainfall concentrated in a wet season from November to April. This climate covers the northern parts of the country, including the Top End of the Northern Territory around Darwin, the Kimberley region of Western Australia, and the northern third of Queensland up to Cape York Peninsula.

Tropical regions experience two seasons rather than four: the Wet, when warm moist air from the Indian and Pacific oceans is drawn south by the Australian summer monsoon, and the Dry, when south-easterly trade winds bring clear skies and lower humidity. Average temperatures range from about 25 degrees Celsius in the Dry to 32 degrees and very high humidity in the Wet, with Darwin receiving about 1,700 millimetres of rain a year, almost all between December and March.

Tropical cyclones are a recurring hazard. Cyclone Tracy destroyed Darwin on Christmas Eve 1974, killing 71 people and prompting the city's complete rebuilding under stricter cyclone-resistant building codes. Cyclones Yasi (2011), Debbie (2017), and Jasper (2023) caused severe damage along the Queensland coast. The 2024 to 2025 cyclone season included Cyclone Alfred, which struck south-east Queensland and northern New South Wales in March 2025, the furthest south a cyclone had made landfall in decades.

Tropical Australia is also where the Great Barrier Reef and the Daintree Rainforest meet, two World Heritage areas adjoining each other on the north Queensland coast. The wet tropics support Australia's only equatorial rainforests and are home to species found nowhere else, including the cassowary, the tree kangaroo, and the musky rat-kangaroo. Aboriginal cultures of the tropical north distinguish six or more seasons rather than the European-derived two.