Severe thunderstorms forecast for much of Australia

Australian Community Media

Heavy to intense rain expected for parts of the east coast. Video via the Bureau of Meteorology.

Transcript

00:00 Hello, I'm Angus Hynes here at the Bureau of Meteorology where severe thunderstorms

00:04 are forecast to continue for much of northern and eastern Australia for the rest of the

00:08 week and throughout the weekend, and these severe storms are likely to sink southwards

00:12 and affect parts of South Australia, Victoria and maybe eventually parts of Tasmania too.

00:18 Severe thunderstorms can generate heavy to intense rainfall which will lead to flash

00:23 and surface flooding.

00:25 Storms can also generate damaging or destructive winds which can destroy fences and outdoor

00:31 furniture as well as bring down power lines and cause power outages.

00:35 Finally these severe storms may generate large or giant sized hail which can damage anything

00:40 outdoors including cars and can even cause injury to anyone who gets trapped outside

00:45 at the wrong time.

00:46 Let's check out what's going on at the moment, initially with a look at our radar imagery

00:50 from this morning.

00:51 There has been a number of storms across northern Australia through Thursday morning but at

00:54 the moment it storms through interior New South Wales and parts of South Australia which

00:59 are of more concern.

01:00 In particular one cell here near Bourke in northern New South Wales, let's zoom in for

01:04 a closer look on that one, has been bubbling away for a couple of hours now but just in

01:08 the last few hours into the middle of the day on Thursday has started to intensify which

01:13 we can see with the darker yellows and the reds on the radar imagery here showing intense

01:18 heavy rainfall and because of that we have issued a severe thunderstorm warning for that

01:23 area.

01:24 This is the current severe thunderstorm warning shape, it covers three of these forecast districts,

01:28 parts of the Upper Western as well as the Central Western slopes and plains and the

01:31 North Western slopes and plains all have this severe weather warning active at the moment.

01:36 When it comes to thunderstorm warnings I do have to stress that they change and update

01:39 very very rapidly so no matter what time you are watching this video it will pay to double

01:45 check the latest severe weather warnings because new thunderstorms can generate new warnings

01:50 very very quickly.

01:51 This is the current position but it is likely through the afternoon where we will see further

01:54 severe thunderstorm warnings issued.

01:57 That's the state of play for today, let's check out how we're placed going forward for

02:01 the next few days.

02:02 This is this afternoon, thunderstorm activity likely to continue for inland New South Wales,

02:06 much of interior Queensland as well as southeastern South Australia.

02:10 Some of these storms may be severe.

02:13 Also note the heavy rain and possible thunderstorms moving into the Mallee in the far north of

02:17 Victoria there and we're going to continue to see that trend on Thursday into Friday.

02:23 A low pressure develops near Adelaide on Friday and that will start to pull this rain and

02:28 thunderstorm band southwards covering a much larger portion of Victoria for Friday.

02:33 Central New South Wales including some southeastern places may see thunderstorms out to the coast

02:37 there for some of these highly populated coastal regions and we'll continue to see some thunderstorms

02:43 possibly severe for interior parts of Queensland.

02:46 Into the weekend we'll continue to see storms around much of the east coast and the far

02:50 north here.

02:51 We may well see some rain and possible storms across parts of northern Tasmania, certainly

02:55 through parts of Victoria, New South Wales, continuing to see storms through interior

02:59 Queensland and into Sunday again.

03:02 Further storms associated with this low pressure system but also some more storms for parts

03:06 of the east and northeast of Australia throughout the course of the day.

03:10 With these stormy days all in a row it is going to bring some fairly extensive wet weather.

03:14 Just check out the total rainfall forecast for the next four days.

03:18 Between now and Sunday night this is a look at all the rain we might expect across the

03:22 country and we can really see these thunderstorm areas all up the east and across the north

03:26 bringing some pretty significant rainfall totals.

03:29 Thunderstorms by their very characteristic do give inconsistent rainfall amounts.

03:33 Some of the most severe thunderstorms can dump 100mm of rain in a short space of time,

03:38 just a couple of hours, but those rainfall tallies will be fairly localised.

03:42 Broadly speaking we're looking at widespread rainfall tallies between 30 and 60mm for much

03:47 of eastern and northern Australia but certainly going to see isolated totals up over 100 and

03:53 for some places that's likely to be over 200mm of rain if you do get hit by a couple of storms

03:58 throughout the course of the rest of the week.

04:00 It will be very active and I anticipate severe thunderstorm warnings likely to be present

04:05 not just on Thursday but again through parts of the day on Friday and into the weekend

04:09 as well so it will be a good time to keep up to date with the latest warnings.

04:13 We will always have the current and up to date warnings available at the Bureau website

04:17 and make sure you put your location into your BOM Weather app so you'll get alerted of any

04:21 warnings near you as well.

04:23 That is it from me, we'll catch you next time.

04:24 [Music]

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