Heavy Rain, Storms Forecast for Vic, ACT and NSW

G'day, David from the bureau here with an update on the severe weather impacting a large area of south-east Australia this week.

We're going to have a look at the impacts that we've already seen from this system.

So we saw torrential rain briefly in Melbourne yesterday, which caused a lot of flash flooding, a lot of impacts, people rescued from cars, SES responding to a lot of jobs.

So we've already seen that flash flooding and we could see more of that across south-east Australia the next 2 or 3 days. River flooding in eastern Victoria.

We've already got a Flood Warning current and we might see more issued, and a spring thunderstorm outbreak across the ACT and New South Wales Friday afternoon and again Saturday afternoon.

So let's have a look at what we've already seen. Here's the radar from this morning.

So you can see plenty of rain extending across eastern Victoria, eastern New South Wales and some slow-moving rain and storms across parts of South Australia as well.

We can see the 24-hour rainfall totals showing up here, so the green dots are 25 mm to 50 mm.

So large areas through Ballarat, Melbourne. The Latrobe Valley saw 20 mm to 50 mm.

Metro Melbourne saw 40 mm to 50 mm, even 60 mm, much of that falling in short time on Thursday afternoon, which, as I said, brought significant impacts and plenty of totals of 15 mm to 30 mm more broadly through these areas of south-east Australia.

So that's the rainfall that we've already seen. We're expecting plenty more rain over the next 3 days or so. So here's the accumulated totals.

You've got those big areas of 20 mm to 40 mm right across the board. And then these focal areas are parts of the Mallee and eastern South Australia.

And through the Riverina could see thunderstorms today, which could bring totals of 30 mm to 60 mm.

Through the Illawarra, some rain today and more tomorrow could reach 20 mm to 60 mm, and through large parts of eastern Victoria in these darker purple shades here, totals of 50 mm to 100 mm anywhere in that area there, with some totals higher than that, as well as parts of the Otway coast too.

And we'll go into more detail on that as we go through. So here's the thunderstorm map for Friday. A large yellow area here for severe thunderstorms.

Further south we're more talking about rain through Victoria.

But then as you transition north through western New South Wales, those typical spring thunderstorms with heavy rain, damaging winds and large hail all possible in these areas of western New South Wales, I should say, on Friday afternoon.

So let's see what the weather map looks like.

We've got this low pressure system here that's going to track very slowly south-east, bring this heavy rain potentially through the Mallee and eastern South Australia on Friday afternoon.

And then you see the focus shift further east through the eastern parts of Victoria and New South Wales.

Later in the day there'll be rain right through the day, particularly for eastern Victoria. And then what does that look like?

This is our high res, high-resolution rainfall guidance.

So you can see this rain accumulate through the Mallee particularly and through parts of eastern South Australia there through Friday afternoon with slow-moving storms.

So it's been a really good cropping season through the Mallee, through the Riverina. All these areas have had a really great winter cropping season. Unfortunately, some of this rain could be too much.

30 mm to 60 mm on some of these crops will not be good news, unfortunately.

And then as we go on through Friday evening and into the early hours of Saturday morning, you'll see that totals shift, the rainfall accumulation shift south and start to build up through southern and eastern Victoria and through eastern New South Wales as well.

So let's move on to Saturday. Now here's the thunderstorm map for Saturday.

You can see these two different yellow areas where severe thunderstorms are possible. Again, similar to Friday.

The risk is mainly for heavy rain through Gippsland, although could see some of those more discreet storms bringing damaging winds and large hail through East Gippsland.

And more of that same story.

Damaging winds, large hail, heavy rain, a risk through north-east Victoria and right up through this area of western New South Wales as well, with thunderstorms extending right to the coast later in the day also.

So we've also got a Severe Weather Warning current for heavy rainfall.

It covers the Otway coast down here in south-western Victoria and also this area of Gippsland, and we'll see how the rainfall totals accumulate there through Friday night and into Saturday morning, because there could be some significant totals falling there. We'll come to that in a second. We'll watch first.

This low pressure system continue to track south-east through Saturday. It'll be offshore by the time we get to Saturday evening.

Once the winds focus in here.

Meanwhile, strong south to south-easterly winds are going to pump that rain in through the south coast of Victoria.

And then by the time we get to Sunday, there'll be some lingering showers and perhaps some storms, mainly through Gippsland in the south coast of New South Wales.

But generally things will be easing by Sunday, with a dry day for Melbourne, for Sydney and perhaps some showers around Canberra on Sunday.

So here's what the rainfall totals look like accumulating through Saturday and Sunday.

And you can see plenty accumulating through southern and eastern New South Wales.

As I mentioned the Illawarra before and central-west New South Wales as well, with plenty of storms there.

But then the focus that I want to draw your attention to is through the Otways here, where there could be 50 mm to 80 mm and possibly over 100 mm in some spots, and similar for the Strzelecki Ranges, which are here, and the Mount Baw Baw area, which is here through eastern Victoria.

So these areas again could see 40 mm to 100 mm with a few spots getting well over 100 mm. So that sort of rain could cause flash flooding through Saturday.

So that's something to be aware of, particularly for anyone who's out and about during the ongoing school holidays in Victoria and New South Wales.

Now all this rain of course, I showed you yesterday we've had a large Flood Watch area current for all these catchments in the blue across central, eastern, northern Victoria.

We've also got one Flood Warning current already down here on the Bunyip River draining into Western Port Bay. So that goes through Warragul and areas like that.

And we could see more Flood Warnings issued over the next few days as that more of that rain hits the catchments, which many of them, as I said, are quite wet, particularly through northern Victoria, so they could flood relatively easily given enough rain.

So that's all we've got for you. Today's plenty going on across the south-east.

Now's the time to stay up to date with the latest forecast and warnings at home or abroad.

If you're travelling during the school holidays, you can always find the latest on our website, on our app, and follow us on our social media channels for more as well.

Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.