Ex-Tropical Cyclone Jasper continues to move across north Queensland

Australian Community Media

Jasper will move from the Queensland peninsular to the gulf over 36 hours beginning Thursday.

Transcript

00:00 Hello, it's Angus here at the Bureau of Meteorology with the latest on ex-tropical cyclone Jasper.

00:05 I say ex-tropical cyclone because it has been reclassified as a tropical low.

00:10 However, when Jasper crossed the coast of Queensland, just north of Port Douglas around

00:14 9 o'clock on Wednesday evening, it was a category 2 tropical cyclone, and since then we have

00:19 seen widespread heavy rainfall, flooding and damaging wind.

00:24 There is more severe weather on the cards for the rest of today and much of Friday,

00:27 and that's what we're here to focus on.

00:29 The severe weather which is still to come as Jasper crosses north Queensland.

00:34 First thing we'll look at is rainfall which has fallen last night and this morning, and

00:37 we can see fairly extensive yellow signals here in our radar showing the regions of heavy

00:42 rain which have just been driving onto the coastline, really bringing up those rainfall

00:47 numbers.

00:48 Top tallies that we've seen so far exceed 500mm about parts of the Daintree area, with

00:53 a number of other spots along this coast between Cooktown and Cardwell tallying between 200

00:58 and 400mm of rain in the past 24 hours.

01:02 That has led to extensive flooding and there's also been some really strong wind in this

01:07 region.

01:08 But it's not over yet, and let's take a look at why.

01:11 If we look at the next 36 hours between the middle of the day Thursday and the end of

01:15 the day on Friday, we're going to see that Jasper, which is represented by this L on

01:20 the map here, just moves really, really slowly across the north of Queensland.

01:24 It takes that full 36 hour period for Jasper to move from the central part of the peninsula

01:30 out towards the Gulf, probably reaching Gulf waters late Friday night or maybe early on

01:34 Saturday morning.

01:36 Across that 36 hour period we expect more or less uninterrupted rainfall across the

01:40 north tropical coast of Queensland as well as around much of the peninsula area here

01:44 through inland places too.

01:46 With this further incoming persistent rain we have maintained this broad severe weather

01:51 warning right through this yellow area from about Innisfail northwards, we could see heavy

01:55 to locally intense rain through the rest of the day Thursday and much of the day on Friday

02:00 as well, and with the winds still wrapping into that low pressure system, likely to see

02:05 a continuation of damaging wind gusts which could bring down further trees and power lines

02:09 and could cause further damage to property.

02:12 With all of this incoming rainfall, no surprise really to see flooding across northern parts

02:17 of Queensland, here's a snapshot of the current flood situation for these northern rivers,

02:21 with two rivers currently in major flooding, including the Daintree River here in the north

02:26 and the Barron River here which affects parts of Cairns.

02:29 Other rivers have minor to moderate flooding currently but we could see further rivers

02:34 added to this.

02:35 All across the north of Queensland we have flood watches through all of these purple

02:40 areas here.

02:41 Flood watches are regions that we're tracking closely, monitoring how that rain falls across

02:45 the catchment, how the river responds to that, and any of these places could see flood warnings

02:51 issued if the rivers rise rapidly enough.

02:53 So this is a dynamic and evolving situation, if you're in the north or you know people

02:58 that are, share this information with them, and don't forget you can always find the latest

03:01 severe weather information and flood information at the Bureau website, do check out the app

03:07 as well, and we will keep these updates headed your way through our social media channels.

03:10 [Music plays]

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