Severe storms expected for much of eastern Australia

Australian Community Media

The rain is being driven onshore by a deep low-pressure system sitting over NSW, pushing heavy rain masses over NSW, ACT, Victoria, Queensland.

Transcript

00:00 rainfall and severe thunderstorms impacting parts of eastern Australia today, with persistent heavy

00:05 falls for southeastern New South Wales and parts of eastern Victoria, as well as the ongoing

00:09 thunderstorm outbreak affecting the eastern states. We'll start by looking at the radar

00:14 imagery from this morning. Note this area of yellow and red, that's the heavier rainfall which

00:18 has brought over 200 millimetres in 24 hours to parts of New South Wales, with another 100 on the

00:24 way that has already caused flash and surface flooding in that area. Also note how everything's

00:29 moving southwards and there's even a bit of rotation to the movement of the rain, that's

00:33 because it's all wrapping around a low pressure centre which is up here over central parts of New

00:37 South Wales, and this low is moving to the south-southeast and that means the rain is moving

00:42 south-southeast and that's why we've seen a shift in our warnings compared to yesterday. These are

00:46 the current severe weather warnings, further heavy rain and damaging winds around the south coast

00:51 district of New South Wales, as well as a number of regions in the south and southeast of Victoria

00:55 where the heavy rain and the strong winds anticipated to build through the day today

01:00 and continue into the day tomorrow. With all of this incoming rainfall across Victoria and New

01:05 South Wales there will be a response from the river network, these are flood watches,

01:10 covering almost all eastern rivers in Victoria and southeastern parts of New South Wales too.

01:15 Of particular note, keep an eye on this one here, that's a little red area showing the possibility

01:20 of major flooding around the Bega River in the next day or two. As we zoom out we'll see some

01:25 further flood warnings in place across Queensland and northern New South Wales, in particular a

01:30 major flood warning here for the Moonee River in Queensland. This is being driven by the ongoing

01:34 thunderstorm outbreak across eastern and northern Australia and let's show a new chart here, this is

01:40 the thunderstorm outlook. There's a lot going on on this map so let's break it down, the green

01:44 contour is showing where thunderstorms are possible today, the pale green contour is where thunderstorms

01:48 are likely today, but it's the yellow and the red areas we're more concerned with showing the risk

01:53 of severe thunderstorms through the course of the day today. In particular this red area,

01:58 severe thunderstorms likely and when severe storms do form they can bring heavy to intense rainfall,

02:04 damaging to destructive wind and large or even giant sized hails. So a lot of severe weather

02:10 possible around eastern parts of the country today and even though we're in the yellow area,

02:13 the risk of severe thunderstorms stretches all the way down the coast. Gold Coast, Brisbane,

02:18 Newcastle, Sydney, Wollongong all have a chance of storms and severe storms later on in the day

02:23 today. How much rain might these storms bring on top of what has already been pretty wet over the

02:28 past couple of weeks? Well we're expecting some further rainfall totals, this is two day rainfall

02:33 for Wednesday and Thursday together on the map. Now that you'll see the top values in those

02:38 thunderstorm areas here and through the centre aren't particularly high, maybe 50 to 70 millimetres,

02:44 but with severe thunderstorms the problem is it all comes at once and it overwhelms the drainage.

02:49 The most significant total accumulations over the next couple of days are down in the south

02:53 eastern corner of the country, 200 millimetres of rain not out of the question, giving us

02:58 300 millimetres or more over the course of this entire severe weather event. The majority of the

03:03 rain and the storms are subsiding by the end of the week but there's a lot of severe weather to

03:08 happen before that so do stay up to date with the latest, keep your friends and family in that part

03:12 of the country informed as well. You can always find up-to-date warnings at the Bureau website,

03:17 do check out our app and we'll have another update for you tomorrow.

03:20 you

03:20 (gentle music)

03:23 (gentle music)

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