BOM Senior meteorologist says damaging winds are set to come for southern states

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Sarah Scully is a senior meteorologist with the Bureau of Meteorology and says damaging winds look set to continue for much of the southern states, even reaching up to NSW.

Transcript

00:00Overnight, it was particularly wet and windy for Tasmania. So Mount Wellington, which is

00:06just to the west of Hobart, had a mean wind speed of nearly 140 ks an hour and gusting

00:11up to 172, so that's as strong as you'd see with a Category 3 tropical cyclone. So that

00:17was due to a cold front that crossed Tasmania and southern parts of Victoria yesterday.

00:22As you mentioned, there was also some damaging winds across the mainland through Victoria

00:26and through elevated parts of New South Wales. Rainfall-wise, for Tasmania, there was some

00:31heavy rainfall and there are minor to moderate flooding and even a major flooding for the

00:36Do and we're expecting the river to peak at major flood level later this evening.

00:42As well on top of that, there's coastal warnings with really large and powerful surf that's

00:46been generated by these really strong winds, which is also creating coastal erosion, dangerous

00:52beach conditions and abnormally high tides with some seawater flooding of low-lying areas

00:58and inundations of even some properties. So it's a lot of weather going on and we do have

01:04another cold front coming tonight. It's just been these series of cold fronts bringing

01:08these severe weather. So it's expected to cross later tonight with damaging winds expected

01:13to extend from southern parts of South Australia into Victoria for Tasmania as well, of course,

01:20and into eastern parts of New South Wales tomorrow morning, with the potential for locally

01:25destructive winds as well. And also on the leading frontal band, we're expecting some

01:31thunderstorms, really gusty showers and potentially damaging wind gusts with those thunderstorms.

01:40Look, this is the last of the series of fronts that have just been rolling through over the

01:45last seven days. So there is finally a high-pressure system that will be pushing over eastern parts

01:49of the country, giving a bit of a reprieve from the stronger, windier conditions for

01:54at least a couple of days.

01:56We also, I just want to touch as well on, yes, it's the first day of spring, but it's

02:00not really felt like winter the last week or so with these hot conditions. What's the

02:04latest on the heat?

02:06Look, it's shaping up to be one of the warmest winters on record and the warmest August on

02:14record, and three degrees above average for August. With regards to the outlook for spring,

02:21it's likely that it's going to be above average with regards to temperature. And taking a

02:25look at the rainfall, it looks likely that the large parts of eastern Australia will

02:30have above average rainfall. For southern Australia, more typical for the spring rainfall

02:36pattern, and out in the west, it looks like they'll have below average rainfall.

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