Rainband spreading across Australia
Beginning of August 2024 to bring cold, wet conditions, especially in the western half of the country.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Hello, it's Angus here at the Bureau with a weather update for you.
00:03It is the first day of August, and today we're focused on one specific weather system which
00:08is going to move across Australia in the next few days, and it's one to watch as well, particularly
00:12as we get into early next week.
00:15This could bring some widespread rain, but we'll start by looking at the satellite image,
00:19and we'll see, can you spot where I'm talking about?
00:21Well maybe we'll play this image one more time and we'll do a bit of a zoom in, because
00:24initially we're focused on the north-west of Western Australia, up around the Pilbara
00:29region, maybe parts of the Kimberley, parts of the Gascoyne as well, we're seeing this
00:33cloud build today, and with this cloud we're seeing a few patchy showers roll into this
00:38part of the country, but for the rest of the working week, Thursday and Friday, not expecting
00:43to see too much rainfall with this system, there will certainly be some patchy showers
00:48up across the north and north-west of WA, but as we'll see on the rain accumulation
00:52chart, initially, mostly light falls, so looking at this map here, the blues and greens
00:58are single digit rainfall totals, and that's mostly what we expect to see over the next
01:03couple of days.
01:03Possibly some parts of the Pilbara could see 15 or 25mm of rain in the next few days, but
01:09generally between 2 and 10mm with just a few showers and cloudy skies.
01:14Once we move into the weekend though, this whole system gets a bit more interesting,
01:18it continues to move eastwards into central parts of Australia, and you start to see
01:22a few more dark blues coming in, some heavier rain starts to arrive over the course of the
01:27weekend as it moves into South Australia and southern parts of the Northern Territory,
01:31and this is where we start to see those rainfall numbers pick up a little bit.
01:35All of a sudden across central Australia, we're now looking at widespread areas where
01:39we might see 20, 30, even 40mm in places, and when that amount of rain falls across
01:45these normally dry areas in central Australia, it can certainly have some impact, particularly
01:50on travel and transportation, because of course a lot of these outback roads in this
01:55part of the country, they are dirt roads, so it doesn't take that much wet weather
01:59before they become muddy, and in some cases impassable, so we could well see some road
02:04closures over the course of the weekend.
02:06It is worth noting at this stage that there's still a little bit of uncertainty, there's
02:09not complete clarity as to how this will play out.
02:12There's no guarantee the rain map will look exactly like this during the weekend, but
02:17the broad picture is pretty consistent, we do expect to see rain moving through these
02:21parts of the country on Saturday, and in particular on Sunday, but we're not done yet.
02:27This weather system will continue to move eastwards over the first couple of days of
02:30next week, potentially amplifying as it moves into southern Queensland and eventually northern
02:36parts of New South Wales.
02:38At the moment it looks like Tuesday is probably the day to watch because we may see the rain
02:43intensity pick up, we may see the development of some thunderstorms across parts of Queensland
02:48and New South Wales through the first few days of next week.
02:51Again, I do have to say, there's a few scenarios for how this could play out.
02:55It may just move across these states, bringing light to locally moderate rainfall totals,
03:00but there's definitely a chance this weather system could amplify and intensify on the
03:05first couple of days of next week and we could start to see widespread moderate and locally
03:10heavy falls of rain, particularly if those thunderstorms do get going.
03:14So for now, what I'll say, this is one to watch.
03:17We are getting rain for the next few days, we are getting rain into the weekend, but
03:20as we look towards next week, this is a good weather system just to keep in the back of
03:24your mind because we will be locking in those details and confirming the forecast.
03:28We've got our crew on deck each and every day checking out the latest information and
03:32updating your weather forecast, which of course you can find on the Bureau website and app.
03:36Thanks for watching, hope you have a great day.