Australia's Northern Territory braces for Tropical Cyclone Fina

Fina, a category three cyclone sitting in the Van Diemen Gulf with wind gusts up to 185 kph (115 mph), was predicted to pass to the north of Darwin, the capital of the Northern Territory, later on Saturday as a "severe tropical cyclone", the nation's Bureau of Meteorology said.

The cyclone was forecast to hit the region's remote Tiwi Islands and Cape Hotham, before impacting Darwin, whose residents were being urged to "immediately commence or continue preparations, especially securing boats and property", the weather bureau said on its website.

"All flights for today, 22 November are cancelled," Darwin International Airport said in an alert on Fina on its Facebook page, adding that conditions were expected to worsen.

The warning for Darwin, which has a population of around 140,000, conjures painful memories of Cyclone Tracy , which wiped out much of the city on Christmas Day 1974, killing 66 people, in what was one of Australia's worst natural disasters.

A weather bureau senior meteorologist Dean Narramore said the cyclone was not expected to make landfall, but would likely be felt in Darwin on Saturday afternoon.

It was forecast to bring "widespread heavy rainfall and damaging to locally destructive winds," to the city, Narramore told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

"Staying over water means it's likely to maintain its intensity," he added.

Category three tropical cyclones, two levels below the highest danger rating, typically damage structures, crops and trees and cause power failures, according to the weather bureau.

In March, ex-tropical cyclone Alfred hit neighbouring Queensland, closing schools and leaving hundreds of thousands of people without power.