Severe Weather Update 12 February 2024: Storms and Extreme Fire Dangers in the south-east

Australian Community Media

Severe Weather Update: Cold front to bring thunderstorm outbreak to the south-east and Extreme Fire Danger for Victoria & South Australia.  Video current: 12:30pm AEDT 12 February 2024. Courtesy: Bureau of Meteorology

Transcript

00:00 A powerful cold front is forecast to sweep across southeastern Australia on Tuesday,

00:04 bringing extreme fire danger to many, and an outbreak of thunderstorms as well.

00:09 Let's start by looking at the synoptic situation.

00:11 This is the front we're talking about, it's moving up from the southwest on Monday, but

00:15 really Tuesday is the day we're flagging for severe weather.

00:18 As we bring this to a halt at midday on Tuesday we see two weather features of note.

00:23 This dashed blue line is the initial wind change, but the more significant weather will

00:27 be associated with this cold front, that's the chillier air, and that risk of thunderstorms.

00:32 So at midday on Tuesday we can see dry, gusty winds ahead of these weather features being

00:38 drawn across the southeast from the centre of the continent.

00:41 That's going to lead to a warm day.

00:43 These are the forecast temperatures for midday tomorrow, 35 degrees in Melbourne, upper 30s

00:47 for some northern parts of Victoria, high 20s across Tasmania.

00:51 So those areas which are warm, they're dry, and they're experiencing gusty winds, well

00:56 that's the recipe for extreme fire danger.

00:58 Here's a look at the fire danger ratings for Tuesday across the southeast with a number

01:02 of places in that orange extreme rating, through northern and northwestern Victoria, and some

01:08 central and southeastern parts of South Australia.

01:11 It is likely that we will see fire weather warnings issued for these areas, if so, they

01:15 will be issued on Monday evening ahead of Tuesday.

01:19 Let's go back to the front now and see what happens as it crosses landfall.

01:23 On Tuesday afternoon, note this increase in rain and storms across central and eastern

01:27 Victoria, northeastern Tasmania, some parts of southern New South Wales as well.

01:32 In fact we can bring on our thunderstorm risk map to see which areas are most likely to

01:37 see storms.

01:38 This pale green area shows where thunderstorms are likely, quite widespread across southeastern

01:43 Australia tomorrow.

01:44 The yellow area is where we may see severe thunderstorms.

01:48 If we do get severe thunderstorms on Tuesday afternoon or evening, it will be because they

01:52 are causing damaging wind gusts.

01:54 That's wind exceeding 90km/h that can bring down trees and power lines and cause damage

01:59 to property and infrastructure.

02:02 It seems that wind will be the main threat with these storms, there's not a lot of rain

02:06 in the forecast across southeastern parts of the country because this front is moving

02:09 through really really quickly, so it doesn't rain for long.

02:12 Most places are in the blue, that means there's single digit rainfall totals expected, although

02:16 with the thunderstorms we might see a few areas pick up between 20 and 40mm of rain.

02:21 On Tuesday afternoon or Tuesday evening.

02:24 Finally a little look to what happens on Wednesday as this front continues to move eastwards

02:28 across Victoria, then into New South Wales.

02:30 Not getting into too much detail yet but we will likely see some storms develop around

02:34 this area, possibly from Wollongong up to Newcastle, and could even see a southerly

02:38 buster up that coastline with a strong change through Sydney sometime on Wednesday afternoon.

02:44 So it's going to be active weather across the southeast of the country for the next

02:47 few afternoons, do stay up to date with your latest forecasts and warnings at the Bureau

02:52 app or website.

02:53 Thanks very much for checking in.

02:54 [Music]

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