Damaging winds and extreme fire dangers for parts of South Australia and Victoria

Australian Community Media

Extreme fire danger ratings for South Australia and Victoria on December 26, 2024. Video by The Bureau of Meteorology,

Transcript

00:00Damaging winds and extreme fire dangers to impact parts of South Australia and

00:05Victoria over the next 48 hours and we can see a severe weather warning is

00:09already current for damaging winds for large parts of Western Victoria,

00:13southwest New South Wales and much of eastern South Australia. This does

00:18include the Grampians where those ongoing fires are. If you live in this

00:22yellow highlighted area or know someone that does that means we can see winds

00:26gusting of 90 to 100 kilometres an hour tomorrow. That's enough to bring down

00:30trees and power lines, cause some minor power outages but also create dangerous

00:35conditions for our ongoing fires through the Grampians. So if you live on or near

00:40any of the fires going around the Grampians area please stay up to date

00:44with the latest forecasts and warnings in the coming days. Now not only is it damaging

00:48winds we're also looking at extreme fire dangers today and tomorrow. Today we're

00:53expecting extreme fire dangers through western parts of South Australia and

00:56the Mount Lofty ranges as well but it is tomorrow that we are more concerned

01:01about as we see large areas of extreme fire dangers through eastern parts of

01:06South Australia, western and central Victoria and even get into parts of

01:10eastern Victoria as well except for East Gippsland. This does include the Melbourne

01:15metropolitan area and the Grampians National Park. What this orange

01:19highlighted area means that if you live in this area conditions will likely be

01:23dangerous for fire activity tomorrow as we see a combination of strong winds,

01:28high temperatures and dry air meaning that any fire that does get going

01:32tomorrow or already is ongoing around the Grampians will likely be

01:36uncontrollable and uncontainable tomorrow leading to dangerous and

01:40erratic fire behaviour. So please make sure if you live in forested or grassy

01:45areas make sure you stay up to date the latest forecasts and warnings and

01:48especially listen to all advice from emergency services. And another thing

01:53that's driving these conditions is the heat. So we're seeing very high

01:56temperatures in the high 30s to low to mid 40s today across much of central and

02:02eastern inland Australia and it gets even hotter tomorrow with temperatures

02:06in the high 30s to low 40s for Victoria, 40s for much of inland New South Wales

02:11and even getting into the mid to high 40s through parts of Queensland and

02:15South Australia and it's this heat combined with strong winds that is

02:19causing these fire conditions and we can see that today as we move into the

02:23evening hours tonight that cool change moving into southwestern South Australia

02:27and then another move towards the Adelaide area on Thursday morning and

02:31it's going to be a hot night with temperatures in the low 30s for much of

02:34the night and then that change will sweep through parts of Adelaide as we

02:38move into the morning hours and then start moving into western parts of

02:42Victoria on Thursday and you can see there's really hot and gusty winds

02:46moving down ahead of that. Then that westerly change probably looking to move

02:50around the fire grounds of the Grand Mints in that mid-afternoon time frame

02:53so watch out for that. Then that cool change will move into central parts of

02:57Victoria as we get into the afternoon and evening hours, probably at this stage

03:02into the late evening hours around the Melbourne area and then that westerly

03:05change will sweep across much of Victoria on Thursday night and South

03:09Australia as well leading to big temperature drops and then the focus on

03:13Friday will shift into parts of New South Wales with hot dry windy

03:16conditions leading to high to extreme fire dangers in northeastern parts of

03:21New South Wales on Friday. So with these dangerous fire conditions and damaging

03:25winds forecast in the coming days particularly through Victoria and South

03:28Australia make sure you stay up to date with the latest forecasts and warnings

03:32by our website app and social media and listen to all advice from emergency

03:37services.

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