Queenslanders are bracing for a potential category three cyclone forecast to cross the coast weeks after wild weather lashed the region.

The Bureau of Meteorology said a tropical low in the Coral Sea is expected to develop into a cyclone, which will be named Kirrily, late on Monday.

“We’re getting to a severe category three cyclone as we move through the Wednesday time-frame,” senior bureau meteorologist Dean Narramore said on Sunday.

Narramore said it was likely to approach the Queensland coast as a severe cyclone into Thursday but there was still some uncertainty about where it would make landfall.

“While our consensus track does cross it to the south of Townsville, there’s still a range of scenarios where we could see a cross between Cairns and Mackay,” he said.

There’s also uncertainty about where the cyclone could track after it makes landfall.

Narramore said it could move back out to sea or move south, possibly bringing heavy rain and damaging winds to parts of south-east Queensland.

It comes as a tropical low that has caused widespread flooding, road closures and evacuations of some communities in the Northern Territory moves into Western Australia’s Kimberley.

Narramore said the system had been “persistent” and was tracking so slowly it was “hardly moving” across the NT.

The community of Kalkarindji was warned it could be isolated as the Victoria River rose to near-record flood levels on Sunday.

Some catchments along the river received up to 370 millimetres of rain in three days.

While the system was not expected to bring as much rain to the Kimberley as it has across the NT, a severe weather warning has been issued for the region.

Heavy rainfall and flash flooding are possible and a flood watch is in place for East Kimberley, Fitzroy River, Sandy Desert De Grey River and Sturt Creek District.

Tweet from @BOM_au

Schools prepare for heatwave conditions

Parents are being warned to prepare their children for heatwave conditions as students in Queensland return to school.

Parts of the state are set to swelter with temperatures across inland areas tipped to reach the low 40s and rise to the mid to high 30s in the southeast.

Areas likely to be affected include Bowen, Birdsville, Bundaberg, Brisbane, Gladstone, Ipswich and Longreach.

“Ensure [students] have access to water, things like good hats,” Queensland Ambulance Service senior operations supervisor Matthew Hannabery said.

“Have a general chat with them, let them know to keep up their water … and if they do start feeling headaches or tummy upsets, just to let someone at school know.”

The weather bureau has issued an extreme heatwave warning for South Australia’s north-western pastoral district, with temperatures expected in the low to mid-40s.

Severe to low-intensity heatwave conditions are expected across much of the rest of SA and into southern parts of the NT.

Parts of NSW are also expected to swelter in the coming days.

Areas in the north of the state, including Moree, could reach temperatures in the high 30s and low 40s.

WA has already been sizzling, with temperatures reaching almost 50 degrees in some areas of the Pilbara at the weekend.

A few more days of high temperatures are forecast for the Pilbara and northern Gascoyne regions, but the heatwave is expected to ease from Wednesday.

-AAP