Cloudy with occasional showers and thunderstorms about.
Light to moderate easterly winds
Weather Forecast for Darwin, The Northern Territory Times, Monday 23 December 1974
On Christmas Eve 1974 Darwin residents were looking forward to a quiet Christmas. Cyclone Selma had bypassed the city two weeks earlier. A second cyclone, Tracy, tracking 95 kilometres north of Snake Bay, raised little concern. Most people assumed it would pass them by, just as Selma had done.
When Tracy struck Darwin in the early hours of Christmas Day, few were prepared. Wind speeds reached 217 kilometres per hour before the anemometer was destroyed, with later estimates suggesting gusts up to 280 kmh during the cyclone's peak.
The cyclone claimed 66 confirmed lives, with 53 deaths on land and 13 at sea, though some reports cite a total of 71 fatalities.
