Weather: Showers in East, WA, Sunny Elsewhere

This is the National Weather Forecast. We're taking a look at Thursday's weather.

And not a whole lot to say different from the last few days. Pretty static weather situation remains across the country. But this high pressure area to the south, which has been causing so much settled, fine warm weather, is gradually drifting further away from the country towards New Zealand and slowly departing Australia. Now that won't mean a big shift in our weather pattern just yet, but it is signalling that we will have some changes on the way across our southern states. We have these low pressure regions to the far south. Those are building, those are brewing, those are developing, and they will move onto southern parts in the next few days, particularly once we get into the weekend.

Rainfall, well not a lot of it to talk about. A little bit in eastern Queensland on Thursday. Most of the rain will be around the North Tropical Coast through the Cairns, Innisfail, Cooktown, Port Douglas region up there in the north. There is a slight chance of a shower across all eastern areas from Townsville southwards. But I want to emphasise that word, slight chance. Very hit and miss. Lots of people in eastern Queensland won't notice any showers tomorrow, and those that do will just get low rainfall totals.

A clear, sunny, mild autumn day for all inland parts. That could be used to describe this area. Clear, sunny, mild, verging on warm actually for the time of year for much of New South Wales and ACT. Canberra at 22 °C, western spots at about 27-28 °C, Sydney at about 24 °C. A couple of light showers expected across the east coast, mostly north of Sydney, and nothing too heavy in store for anyone.

Quick forecast once again for Victoria. A little bit of morning cloud and fog, that melts away early, and then it is a sunny, warm day. Temperatures really high for the time of year again in the 20s through the entire state, Melbourne tracking towards 25 °C. Other spots could be one or two higher, including Geelong tracking towards 27 °C.

Also extremely warm in Tasmania, seeing 23 °C and 25 °C on a map down here, it's just not something we're used to at the end of April heading in towards May. Hobart at a high of 23 °C. There will be a little bit more wind around here on Thursday, a northerly flow coming down from the top of the map, pulling a little bit of cloud with it, so it won't be bright blue skies and sunshine all day. It'll be a mixture of cloudy skies and some sunny spells.

And there will also be at least partial cloud cover right across southern SA on Thursday as well, all the way from the Nullarbor down to Mount Gambier. But once again, take a look at those temperatures just way above the averages for April. 28 °C in Adelaide, we've got some 30s in other southern parts as well, and 30s right through the interior. No rain in the forecast here.

There's a little bit of rain for inland Western Australia through the Goldfields down towards the Esperance coast, maybe across to parts of the Eucla. Could even see some storms in this inland region as well. They'll be fairly hit and miss when they do develop. Out towards the west coast from Albany up towards Perth, mostly fine weather, but we'll see a couple of showers rolling through, particularly second half of the day. Perth shouldn't see much rainfall, maybe a quick shower in the afternoon or evening. Anyone north of there through Geraldton out towards the far north-west of the country will be seeing fine, bright conditions.

And finally to the top of Australia, we just click through on the map here. We've got a few showers across the western northern coast of the Top End here. Maybe a stray shower could clip Darwin, but that's looking to be a fairly low risk. Everyone who is not near the coast of the Top End will be seeing some dry season conditions. Mild temperatures around about 30 °C maximums, actually a little bit warmer across the Kimberley, and the sun will be shining.

That is all from me today. Of course you can get more updates on the BOM website or the BOM Weather app. Thank you so much for sticking with me right through to the end.