Australia Braces for Wet Weekend Weather

Let's go state by state, starting in Queensland and our big band of rain over central parts will move into the far south-west, but really only impact areas in and around Birdsville, with the rest of the state not feeling the effects just yet. So for eastern Queensland, another day with some passing showers in amongst some gaps of sunshine around Brisbane and the south-east coast, it's looking quite dry through the day from the Wide Bay and Bundaberg up to about Townsville, but from Townsville northwards we're likely to see some more showers on that east coast and there could even be some moderate accumulations around Cairns or other parts of the north tropical coast. In between the east coast and this band of rain out west, a fine, dry, mostly sunny day for almost all of interior Queensland.

For New South Wales, we can also see that band of rain moving into the far west, particularly after lunch, bringing some rain over the outback. But if you live along the east coast, the forecast for the time being is really on a bit of a knife edge because as we see on this map, there's a lot of rain out over these eastern waters, including the potential for some quite heavy falls. At the moment, it looks like those heavy falls will stay over the coastal waters and not move on to the country. And that means that the forecast for these areas is just 1 or 2 showers, some breaks of sunshine, and a relatively settled day. However, it would not take a big shift in the weather pattern to push some of that heavier rain onshore, and that would change the weekend forecast quite a lot. So if you do live on the east coast, including Sydney, Newcastle, Wollongong, definitely keep up to date throughout the course of the weekend with your forecast, and maybe even check the rain radar before you head outdoors. Between the rain over the coast and the rain and the far west, it will be fine and bright through central areas, including for Canberra, with a high of 19 °C and a bright, sunny day all across the western slopes and plains.

For Victoria, a cloudy start will become wet in the morning for western district, so the Mallee, the Wimmera, the south-west should all see rain develop before lunch. It is a slow moving band of rain though, so it will take its time to then drift into central Victoria and we might not see any wet weather arriving in the north country, Shepparton or even Melbourne until really the last couple of hours of the day. So for the majority of Saturday through the central parts here, it is likely to be a little cloudy, a little bit breezy with winds from the north but very, very mild, temperatures in the 20s and dry. And that's how it will stay in Gippsland as well. A mild northerly wind, temperatures warm for the time of year and a little bit of cloud cover, but no rain.

That rings true down here as well. Northerly winds, really mild temperatures and passing cloud cover across Tasmania. Possibly some light showers or even just drizzle for some northward facing areas, including around Launceston and the north-west coast. But the actual band of rain which brings the proper wet weather won't arrive until about midnight, but it will be a wet start to Sunday.

South Australia, this is where most of the action is for Saturday morning. A band of rain across all eastern districts from the north-east pastoral through the Murraylands, the Riverlands and down to the south-east. Into the afternoon, that band actually crosses the state border and moves into New South Wales and Queensland, but in behind it we can see a pretty broad area where there's likely to be some follow up shower and storm activity. Now, this rain through central parts of South Australia is quite different to the band of rain which is soaking falls. This is much more hit and miss. Some people will get a lot, some people will get nothing at all. The risk of thunderstorms is there, so we might see 30 to 50 mm in a short window of time if those storms get going. And thunderstorms could also bring some heavy rain, damaging wind and some large accumulations of hail, particularly around the Eyre Peninsula up towards Port Augusta and pushing north into the pastoral districts.

Now, with all that action in central and eastern places, it's a relatively settled weekend out to the west. High pressure in the vicinity, so we've got a pretty calm day for most of Western Australia. A couple of very light showers for coastal areas from about Bunbury, around the capes and across the south coast. Inland it will be dry, clear and sunny. Perth should have a mostly sunny day with a high of 20 °C and it is clear and mild up around the Pilbara.

And for Australia's north, we actually have some slightly unseasonable rainfall across the southern two thirds of the territory building on Saturday. Showers and rain areas from Tennant Creek down to Alice Springs and across to Uluru, potentially getting some quite heavy falls late on Saturday and into Sunday, especially around this south-eastern corner of the Territory. Further north, it will be fine day around Darwin with a high of 33 °C and at this stage looking pretty clear across the Kimberley as well.

But Sunday now this band of rain really becomes extensive, stretching approximately 4000 km from the Kimberley coast in Western Australia through the Territory, Queensland, New South Wales, down through Victoria and down to Tasmania. Sunday probably the wetter day for Melbourne, Hobart, Canberra as well, seeing most of their rainfall. For the far west, it will stay dry, settled and mostly sunny. For the north-east, we're still not really seeing any influence of the rain band. Just some further coastal showers and Sydney another day where there's close by, but we might not see too much land in our gauges.

So pretty complex weather pattern for the days ahead. Definitely a good one to stay up to date, and we will be updating all the forecasts and you can monitor the movement of our band of rain on the Bureau's website or the BOM Weather app. Thank you so much for sticking with me. We'll be back next week with more of these updates. For now, have a great weekend!