Wet weather and possible flooding for central and south-east Australia

Australian Community Media

Severe weather warnings in place with storms and floods expected as heatwave continues through much of the interior.

Transcript

00:00Rain and possible flooding are on the way for parts of central and southeast

00:04Australia driven by severe thunderstorms and tropical moisture. We can see that

00:10moisture in our satellite imagery. This is our water vapor satellite imagery

00:13which gives us an indication of where moisture is moving in the atmosphere. The

00:18green and blue colors you see in this imagery indicate higher moisture levels

00:23and we can see streams of higher moisture moving across those central and

00:27southeastern parts of the country at the moment. That moisture is feeding into

00:32any showers or storms that do develop at the moment. We can see them spreading

00:36across those central and southeastern parts of the country. Fairly patchy but

00:40also fairly persistent and that's going to be the story of the next few days.

00:44Patchy rainfall but persistent rainfall ongoing across a number of days. Our

00:50thunderstorm forecast for today does show that storms are possible across

00:53broad stretches of the country. Northern, central and southeastern Australia could

00:58all see thunderstorms today. But it's our yellow and red areas on this map

01:02indicating where severe storms are possible if not likely that we really

01:07want to focus in on. Those severe storm areas include parts of central Australia,

01:11South Australia not including Adelaide though but including parts of the

01:15Adelaide Hills and areas further to the southeast with severe storms also

01:19possible through southern inland New South Wales and eastern Victoria. Now any

01:24severe storms could bring us heavy rainfall that could lead to flash

01:27flooding. Damaging wind gusts and large hail are also possible especially with

01:31storms further inland but heavy rainfall is the primary risk with severe storms

01:36today. Now our key severe storm area is this red area through eastern Victoria

01:41spilling back into the Riverina of New South Wales. In this area severe storms

01:45are likely through the course of today and may in fact bring intense rainfall

01:50which is a lot of rain falling in a short space of time. It's this kind of

01:54rain that can really overwhelm our drainage systems and lead to flash

01:58flooding as water moves over the roads and that's certainly a key hazard on the

02:02cards for today which could quickly lead to dangerous driving conditions with

02:06water moving over roads and reduced visibility in that rain. Of course rain

02:11and strong winds can also bring down trees and branches so be on the

02:15watch for that one as well. Now how much rainfall are we expecting through the

02:19course of today? This is our rainfall totals to the end of Tuesday and we can

02:23see that they're fairly patchy across those central and southeast parts of

02:28Australia. In the areas where we're expecting the most rainfall which is

02:33through northern South Australia, the Eyre Peninsula and through eastern

02:36Victoria we could see fairly widespread totals of 15 to 30 millimetres but those

02:41highest rainfall totals will depend on where the storms move and could be

02:46significantly more than that range. Taking a look at tomorrow's thunderstorm

02:52forecast we can see that storms are once again possible across broad stretches of

02:56northern and eastern Australia with severe storms possible through parts of

03:00the north, Queensland, New South Wales and of course the southeast as well. Most

03:05notably for tomorrow severe storms are possible across the Melbourne area so

03:09Melbourne is at risk of seeing those heavy downpours and flash flooding

03:13through the course of tomorrow. Severe storms are likely once again through

03:17northeastern Victoria. Now in terms of flood watches and warnings currently our

03:23only flood products are across southern inland parts of Queensland. However as we

03:28see this rain and storm activity over the next few days further flood watches

03:33and warnings may be issued particularly through southern parts of the Northern

03:36Territory and through northeastern parts of Victoria. Communities in those

03:40areas should keep a close eye on the Bureau's forecasts and warnings page in

03:45case we do need to issue any flood alerts for those areas. In fact anyone

03:49across the central and southeastern parts of Australia should keep a close

03:53eye on the Bureau's website in case we need to issue any warnings over the next

03:57few days. You can also find those updates via the Bureau's app or via our social

04:01media. Stay safe and we'll catch you next time.

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