From Tuesday, though, thunderstorms will start to contract towards the north, but they will persist across central Australia for much of the week. Let's have a look first at the thunderstorm forecast map for Monday.
And we can see here that thunderstorms are forecast across a very broad area of northern and eastern Australia. Severe thunderstorms are possible across parts of the Northern Territory, but again the focus on Monday will be across Queensland and down into New South Wales.
So let's zoom in on that area right now. We can see these areas in yellow show where severe thunderstorms are possible, and they extend all the way from the Mid North Coast and Northern Tablelands in New South Wales and up into much of south-east, central and even outback Queensland.
And these areas in red, which show where severe thunderstorms are likely again, including the Mid North Coast from about Coffs Harbour up towards the Queensland border, through the Darling Downs and out through parts of western Queensland.
For Brisbane, severe thunderstorms are possible, but they're more likely out towards the west, including for places like Toowoomba. So for south-east Queensland and north-east New South Wales today, severe thunderstorms could produce heavy rainfall, leading to flash flooding, damaging winds as well as large hail.
Further north, severe thunderstorms could produce damaging wind gusts as well as heavy rainfall. So if you are in these areas today, do check for the latest forecasts and warnings as we head into Monday afternoon, as well as the evening.
From Tuesday, having a look at the thunderstorm map, we can see thunderstorms contract a little bit further towards the north. So across the Sunshine Coast hinterland into Wide Bay and the Capricornia, and again out into western parts of Queensland.
Severe thunderstorms become more broad across central Australia, expanding to places like Alice Springs where damaging winds are possible, and heavy rain and damaging winds remain a risk across much of Queensland as we head into Tuesday. And then on Wednesday, we do see severe thunderstorms remaining possible across parts of south-east Queensland, the Capricornia and up into the Central Highlands.
We also do see severe thunderstorms continuing across central Australia, including around the Alice Springs area.
But with that recent rainfall and more to come, we do have a number of flood warnings current across Queensland. We do have, starting off first, a major flood warning for a number of catchments. They include the Upper Condamine River as well as Warrill Creek and Laidley Creek, with very heavy rainfall rates we are seeing rivers and creeks rising quite quickly.
But because the ground is so sodden, it's not actually taking too much to start to see these rivers and creeks, as well as drains, rise quite quickly. So do check for the latest forecasts and warnings before you head out. We do have a number of moderate flood warnings.
They include first for the Mary River, impacting communities like Tara as well as Maryborough. We also do have a moderate flood warning for the Weir River down towards the New South Wales border. We also do have a number of minor flood warnings.
They include across outback parts of Queensland as well as the Moonie River. But this situation here is quite dynamic, with more rainfall to come. We are likely to be issuing further flood watches and warnings over the next few days, even after the rain has eased.
So let's have a look at some of that computer model data now. Starting off with Monday, we see showers and storms associated with a surface trough and cold front moving up the east coast. We see showers and storms first picking up across north-east New South Wales by Monday afternoon and evening.
Quite a broad area of storms are likely across south-east and central Queensland. From Tuesday, we start to see that trough moving a little bit further north, still showers streaming onto the east coast.
But those storms will contract towards parts of the Wide Bay, Capricornia and out into western parts of Queensland. And then from Tuesday evening and into Wednesday, we again see thunderstorms across sort of the central and western parts of Queensland, but really picking up across central Australia, including around some parts of the Northern Territory and Alice Springs.
And from the middle of the week, we are expecting to see the area of rain and thunderstorms across central Australia start to consolidate and become a lot more broad, and it could actually start to move towards the east coast as we head into Friday as well as the weekend.
So we can see here the showers and storms pushing eastwards as we head into Friday, and that could mean further showers and storms past South Australia, western New South Wales, and another round is possible across the east coast, but we do have a number of days to play out before then.
Do check for the latest forecast and warnings if you are across central and eastern Australia as we head into the weekend. But for today, Monday, we are expecting further severe thunderstorms across parts of southern and central Queensland as well as north-east New South Wales.
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