Severe Weather Update: Muti-day Heavy Rainfall Event

So let's take a look at the water vapour imagery, because this gives us a really good understanding of where the humidity sits across Australia. Now here's that low pressure system sitting over the centre of the Northern Territory, and it's drawing a huge amount of moisture into northern and central parts of the country.

But shifting the focus to the south, we've got this trough and cold front that's moving eastwards and tapping into that tropical moisture and dragging it over southern and south-eastern parts.

Now, for today, severe thunderstorms are possible across all states and territories. However, they are most likely throughout eastern parts of South Australia, pushing into western parts of New South Wales, in the vicinity of that low pressure system and also about the tropical north of Queensland.

Now heavy rainfall is the main concern. However, damaging wind gusts are possible throughout Victoria and Tasmania with the passage of the front. Now we do have a Severe Thunderstorm Warning current at the moment throughout south-eastern parts of South Australia, now this is for heavy rainfall.

Port Augusta has already seen over 50 millimetres since this morning, and this is really welcomed rainfall following a particularly hot and dry summer. We also have a Severe Weather Warning. Now, this is for heavy to locally intense rainfall and damaging wind gusts, where six-hourly rainfall totals in the vicinity of the low in the Northern Territory may be as high as 120 mm. However, further away and further southwards, 24-hourly rainfall totals of 50 to 80 mm are possible.

Now, tomorrow we are expecting that cold front to skirt away into the Tasman Sea. However, severe thunderstorms are still likely through central parts of Australia, extending into north-west New South Wales, with heavy rainfall and flooding the main concern. Now, with all of this rainfall on the forecast, we have issued a number of Flood Watches that extend all the way from northern Australia down into the south, about the northern parts of the agricultural districts of South Australia.

There's also a number of Flood Warnings that continue across Queensland due to recent rainfall events, and grounds are really saturated, catchments are swollen and will respond very quickly to any further rainfall.

So, weather watch points with this unfolding weather event, the possible flooding for central Australia, but also extending potentially into southern parts as well. There's hazardous driving conditions, with the potential for travel to be disrupted and also for roads to be cut off, and even the potential for communities to be isolated. Agricultural impacts throughout central Australia include the threat to livestock and cattle. Whereas further south, the agricultural impacts are actually positive, where there's been a lot of people that have been desperate for good rainfall.

So let's take a look at how this weather event plays out for the remainder of today. That rain band with the embedded thunderstorms will contract eastwards and start to clear from the west later this evening, moving into tomorrow, however, that cold front will skirt out into the Tasman Sea, dragging with it the bulk of those showers and thunderstorms, with just a few hit and miss showers and storms continuing throughout eastern parts of New South Wales.

But that low pressure system, with the heavy rainfall and severe thunderstorms, continuing to extend into north-western parts of New South Wales. As we head into Tuesday, however, things start to get really interesting again, with this trough of low pressure starting to dig in deep into south-eastern parts of the country, with severe thunderstorms likely throughout central and eastern parts of Victoria, including the Melbourne metropolitan area.

Then they've also got that heavy rainfall area continuing throughout central parts, extending into western parts of New South Wales, with severe thunderstorms possible.

Moving into Wednesday, that trough will then skirt out into the Tasman Sea, with the bulk of the showers and the storms moving eastwards into eastern parts of Victoria and New South Wales. And there is a risk that Sydney may see a severe thunderstorm on Wednesday. Also just noticing a continuation, that lingering low, with the humidity continuing and that heavy rainfall is expected to continue.

So how much rainfall are we talking about? Here I'm showing you the accumulated rainfall between now all the way through into Wednesday evening. And it just highlights that the heaviest rainfall totals are expected throughout central Australia, but as well throughout that border district for South Australia, Queensland and New South Wales, where there's the potential for 150 to 300 plus mm.

For Victoria, there's also a bit of a bullseye around the Melbourne area throughout the central district, with accumulated rainfall totals of 75 plus mm that have the potential to impact some of the fires that have been ongoing through that region.

So with all of this weather going on across large parts of the country, now's the time to stay up to date with our 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.