Catastrophic Fire Threat Hits South-East

So for today, extreme fire dangers are forecast for the Mid-North Fire District for South Australia and for Victoria, the Mallee, Northern Country and North East District. Now within these areas, fire weather warnings are current with total fire bans in place. But also worth noting that there is a total fire ban for the North Central district of Victoria as well, with a number of fires at the emergency level.

Now, the elevated fire dangers are being driven by these very high temperatures, with heatwave conditions that have been continuing for a number of days and widespread temperatures in the low to mid 40s through inland areas. For Adelaide, forecasting a maximum of 39°C, but considerably cooler, 10°C cooler than yesterday for Melbourne thanks to a southerly change, with a maximum of 31°C.

Now severe thunderstorms with damaging winds are possible through these yellow areas, and as well there's very little rainfall expected with any of the storms that do form. So this creates a risk of dry lightning that could potentially ignite new fires.

Now moving into tomorrow, the heat is expected to start to build further down in southern parts of Victoria. In fact, tomorrow is going to be the hottest day this week for Victoria, with widespread inland temperatures of 45°C to 47°C. But it's not just the extreme heat, it's combining with very windy conditions, thanks to a cold front that's sweeping across and those very gusty and dry north to north-westerly winds ahead of it.

So I just thought I'd show you the winds 1.5km above the surface, and they really highlight how the winds start to peak through south-eastern parts of South Australia and Victoria, with 80 to 100km/h starting to develop from the early morning. Now, these are expected to continue throughout the day, with a severe weather warning to be issued for both states for damaging winds. So that's wind gusts up to 90km/h throughout the day tomorrow.

So it's these really windy conditions combining with the extreme heat that are elevating fire dangers to extreme for southern parts of South Australia tomorrow and also for Victoria, but with areas of catastrophic for the Wimmera, the Northern Country and the North Central district. It's within these areas that any fires that do get going are going to spread very quickly and be very difficult to control.

But as well as that, there's a severe thunderstorm risk with damaging wind gusts through this yellow area associated with that cold front that can cause erratic fire behaviour as those gusts hit the ground and make the wind direction very difficult to predict.

So with these elevated fire dangers, we have seen now a number of days of extreme heat or heatwave conditions that have dried the landscape considerably. As well, that dry lightning from those elevated thunderstorms could ignite new fires. And if they get going, those fires are going to spread quickly and be difficult to control.

Heading from Friday into Saturday, I just wanted to show that the strong or gusty winds are expected to contract into eastern parts of Tasmania and south-eastern parts of New South Wales. The heat will also move into eastern parts of New South Wales, with a maximum of 42°C forecast for Sydney and even warmer for the western suburbs.

Just also noticing much milder conditions on the way for the weekend ahead for southern parts of South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania, with maximums in the mid 20s. But those high temperatures for eastern New South Wales and the winds will elevate the fire dangers, reaching extreme, including across the Sydney metro.

So if you live across south-eastern parts of the country, it's imperative that you stay up to date with the latest warnings via the Bureau website, app and social media. And as always, listen to the advice from your local emergency services. Bye for now.