First, let's have a look at the current warning situation. And we do have a number of severe weather warnings for damaging winds. These cover parts of Victoria, New South Wales and the ACT as well as eastern Tasmania. For western and central Victoria, wind gusts around 100km an hour remain possible through the rest of Sunday, particularly through the afternoon, and that does include for the Melbourne and also Geelong areas. For alpine parts of Victoria and New South Wales, wind gusts could pick up to 125km an hour.
As we head into Monday, damaging winds will start to develop across eastern parts of New South Wales and also eastern Tasmania. Conditions will gradually start to ease late on Sunday afternoon and into the evening across Victoria, but into Monday morning damaging wind gusts are still possible across elevated areas. For eastern New South Wales and eastern Tasmania, those wind gusts will only start to ease as we head into Monday afternoon.
As well as damaging winds, we're also looking at the possibility of severe thunderstorms. We have already issued a number of severe thunderstorm warnings on Sunday, and this map gives you an idea of where we could see that continuing through the rest of today. Areas in green show where thunderstorms are possible. That includes all the way up from south-western Queensland and down towards Tasmania. Areas in yellow show where severe thunderstorms are possible, and areas in red where severe thunderstorms are likely.
We have already seen thunderstorms move through South Australia this morning, so that is really easing up through there. But severe thunderstorms do remain a possibility across western New South Wales, Victoria and northern parts of Tasmania. Damaging winds is the main risk, but we could see areas of large hail across Victoria and through northern Tasmania. Heavy rainfall leading to flash flooding will be the main risk through there.
So if you are in these areas, what can you expect? With damaging winds we could see damage to trees as well as property. We could see power lines being toppled over and that could lead to disruptions to utilities such as electricity. And if you are out and about, we could see dangerous conditions for traveling and also driving. So keep an eye on those warnings as we head into the next 24 hours or so.
And so having a look now at what's causing this, we see this cold front on the satellite moving through the Bight through Sunday morning. A lot of warm air ahead of that creating a lot of thick cloud across eastern parts of the country. And behind that, a little bit of cold air moving up from the Southern Ocean. We have already seen wind gusts of 90 to 100km an hour, mainly through coastal and elevated parts of South Australia and also Victoria, including around the Melbourne metro area.
So what can we expect for the rest of the day? Looking at the models here, we see that cold front continue to push out towards the east as we head into Sunday afternoon, and we do see those very strong and damaging northerly winds continuing across a very broad area. Showers and rain areas will also increase. Possibility of heavy falls, as you can see across western and northern parts of Tasmania.
As we head into Sunday night, we see those conditions gradually contracting out towards eastern areas, and we see a few showers developing across eastern parts of New South Wales. Gradually easing up, but we do see very gusty westerly winds continuing across coastal parts as we head into Sunday night.
Then into Monday morning we see conditions continue to ease across much of south-eastern Australia, but another cold front will approach from the south but really only impact Tasmania as we head into Monday afternoon. Through the second half of Monday, although conditions are easing across Victoria and in New South Wales, further north we are tracking another weather system.
If we move a little bit further up we can see into Monday afternoon, this trough here is dragging down a lot of tropical moisture from the north and we will see cloudier areas of rain start to build through the day. This rain will become more extensive as we head into Tuesday, and we will see rain even push out towards the east coast as another low pressure system starts to move up towards South Australia.
What you see here is a very dynamic situation, and this is just one computer model forecast scenario. So we will be providing updates for this weather system as we head into the coming days. But for the rest of Sunday, with the possibility of damaging winds and storms across a large area, it is important that you stay up to date with the latest information and warnings. You can get those on our website and our app.
