Severe Storms, Heavy Rain Hit Eastern Regions

My name is Sarah, and I'll be taking you through what's happening at the moment and what to expect over the coming days.

Over the last 24 hours until 9am this morning, the highest rainfall totals were about north-eastern parts of Tasmania, with a staggering 222 mm recorded in the gauge.

Now this has resulted in some moderate flooding about the St Pauls River and the South Esk River. However, that heavy rainfall has since eased.

Shifting the focus to the mainland.

The higher rainfall totals were generally between about 50 mm to 90 mm and were associated with severe thunderstorms.

Now significantly, some of those high rainfall totals have occurred throughout inland parts of northern New South Wales and the southern interior of Queensland, where up until this rain event they were expected to see the driest start to the year on record.

Now more severe thunderstorms are possible today, extending all the way from the Hunter up into south-eastern parts of Queensland.

Now just focusing on the Queensland area and the Northern Rivers district of New South Wales, it's here that heavy rainfall that may lead to flash flooding, damaging winds or large hail are all possible.

Now elsewhere across the New South Wales area, heavy rainfall that may lead to flash flooding is the greatest risk, but most likely about the mid-north coast pushing in towards the ranges.

Now we also have a Severe Weather Warning out around the Barrington Tops for heavy rainfall that may lead to flash flooding.

That's expected to start to develop later this evening, continuing over tonight into Friday morning.

Now within this warning area, six-hourly rainfall totals between 40 mm and 70 mm are possible, with isolated totals up to 100 mm also may occur.

Now because of all this heavy rainfall, we have issued some Flood Watches for the potential for minor flooding across the Hunter and for parts of the mid-north coast.

Now this includes across catchments inland from Coffs Harbour, Port Macquarie and Newcastle.

Now with all of this heavy rainfall and severe thunderstorms, community impacts could include both flash and riverine flooding, but as well hazardous driving conditions with water across roads that may cause some travel disruptions.

But this rainfall is quite welcome for a large part of the agricultural community that were particularly rainfall deficient.

So let's take a look at the weather system that's driving this weather.

It's this low pressure system that's currently sitting somewhere near the New South Wales-Queensland border, and it's expected to move south-eastwards today to sit off the mid-north-coast later this evening.

Clockwise winds around this low will bring really moisture-laden onshore winds that's helping to drive this heavy rainfall.

As we move into tomorrow, that low will move south-eastwards, dragging the worst of the weather with it, clearing from south-east parts of Queensland by about lunchtime, but it will be a little bit later to clear the northern parts of the New South Wales coast.

So severe thunderstorms are still possible about the mid-north-coast and Hunter as we head into tomorrow, with the potential for heavy rainfall that may lead to flash flooding.

So how much rainfall are we expecting?

Well, this is on top of the rainfall that we've already seen, but between now, through until Friday evening there's the potential across the area of 25 mm to 50 mm.

However, through that area where we have those onshore winds and heavy rainfall, there's the broader range of 100 mm up to 150+ mm.

So if you live across eastern parts of the country, now's a really good time to stay up to date with our latest warnings and keep an eye on the radar, which you can do via the Bureau of Meteorology website, app and social media.

And as always, listen to the advice from your local emergency services. Bye for now.