Extreme weather conditions across Australia

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Weather presenter Nate Byrne with the latest warnings this morning.

Transcript

00:00 The area that we're talking about is quite large here, seven districts in South Australia,

00:06 six across Victoria, but it does take up the majority of the state.

00:09 This is all being driven by a single frontal system.

00:12 It's not a huge front by any means and there's not much moisture associated with it at all,

00:17 but you can still pick up some cloud associated with it there.

00:20 Now, as it comes in, it's tapping into heat that we've had pooling in Western Australia

00:24 for a long time.

00:26 This system has been dragging it across the country and it's the hot, gusty northerly

00:30 winds ahead of this front that's really a concern, followed by then the wind direction

00:36 change that it's bringing.

00:38 West to south westerly winds, in fact, for many we'll see probably a couple of wind direction

00:42 changes through the day as this pushes through.

00:44 It's already come through South Australia, if it gives you any idea, in Adelaide, 35

00:48 degrees at 5am this morning.

00:50 There then this change came through and the temperatures dropped quite significantly,

00:55 but that change is still moving through.

00:56 So this is the area, extreme fire danger.

00:58 You can see how widespread it is, that catastrophic fire danger for the Wimmera.

01:03 And just in here, although it's one uniform colour, there are some variations and particularly

01:08 I'm watching the South West District in Victoria, that's the one just to the south of the Wimmera

01:13 where the catastrophic fire danger is.

01:15 It's extreme there, but it's a high level extreme.

01:17 It's pushing towards catastrophic.

01:20 Not there yet, but it wouldn't surprise me if the situation changes through the day as

01:23 things develop on the ground, we might see some variation in how those warnings are presented

01:27 to the public.

01:28 And Nate, tell us about that change that's going to move through and when that'll be.

01:32 Right, so it's all, it's very, very difficult to nail this precisely, especially because

01:38 this system is pretty messy.

01:40 So I had a chat with the Bureau of Meteorology's senior forecaster, Dean Narrowmore.

01:44 He took us through the details.

01:45 It's going to approach the Victorian border around that lunchtime to one o'clock hour,

01:51 then move into Western parts as we move into the early and middle afternoon.

01:55 It's going to be approaching the fire zone between that five to 7pm time frame and then

02:00 start approaching Geelong around eight o'clock, give or take about an hour, and then into

02:04 around the Melbourne area around nine or 10 o'clock tonight and then into eastern parts

02:09 of the state as we move through the overnight and early morning hours on Friday.

02:13 So it's going to take a while to move through and a very hot day as well for many.

02:17 A very long day ahead for many.

02:20 This isn't whipping through super quickly, unfortunately.

02:24 And the good news here is that behind it, conditions will ease relatively quickly, but

02:28 there's that change slowly marching through.

02:30 You can see we've got a couple of wind direction changes here.

02:34 Westerly, some southwesterly wind starting to push in.

02:37 That's what's going to cause the real concern because that changes the fire and how it behaves.

02:42 When you've got northerly winds, fires running south, the head is on the southern flank.

02:47 Then that wind direction changes, then all of a sudden the eastern flank becomes the

02:50 head of the fire.

02:52 So a very dangerous day on the ground.

02:53 And to add to all of this, Gemma, the dry lightning concerns, we could even see some

02:58 severe thunderstorms in the mix here, maybe producing damaging winds.

03:02 And when that happens, those winds don't follow these directions.

03:06 They go wherever they need to go, courtesy of the storm.

03:09 That could make conditions even more dangerous on the ground.

03:11 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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