A 'gustnado' captured on video at a Top End golf course last week shows just how quickly wild weather events can move.
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In the footage, taken near the inland town of Katherine in the Northern Territory, a column of dust, debris and wind can be seen sweeping across a golf course green.
The vortex quickly moved over the landscape towards the golfers, causing their buggy to roll and some of the men to drop to the grass.
A 'gustnado' - a named condensed from 'gust front tornado - is a quick, shallow vortex which forms in the outflow of thunderstorm.
University of Melbourne's Peter Cole wrote the "rare" occurrences can often be mistaken for a true tornado.
"'True tornadoes' form from thunderstorms that are rotating themselves, known as supercells, where as gustnados have different dynamics," Mr Cole said.
"Instead, they form along a broader air mass boundary that separates warm air rising into the storm from cold air sinking out under the storm."
Mr Cole said while gustnados are usually brief, they can be deadly.
"Since the development of a gustnado needs that initial collision of cold and warm air, they tend to be short-lived as the colder air quickly gets wrapped into the vortex," he said.
"But don't be fooled, these modest little spinups have still proven fatal."
The golfers appear to be in good spirits and unharmed in the video.
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In the Bureau of Meteorology's latest long-range summer forecast, it predicted summer days are likely to be warmer than average across most of the Northern Territory, as well as in Western Australia, north and central Queensland coastal areas and parts of the south including Tasmania.
While there are no current tornado warnings for the Top End, last month the Bureau of Meteorology released predictions for a 73 per cent chance of above-average tropical cyclone activity across Australia over summer.
Australia's long-term average in the season ahead is 11 tropical cyclones, but the 2022 to 2023 period will likely exceed this for the first time since the 2005-2006 season.
The forecast is based in climate drivers including a La Nina system and a natural climate phenomenon that influences weather patterns around the Indian Ocean, known as Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD).
Both are associated with warmer ocean temperatures near Australia which means more moisture over the continent and stronger low pressure systems in the south.
