Picture: supplied
Severe thunderstorms, hail and even flash flooding could hit south-east Queensland and north-east NSW today and tomorrow.
Bureau of Meteorology’s Dean Narramore says storms are possible in every state and territory today (Tuesday) except for Tasmania.
“Those storms brought destructive winds to a few locations through central and northern Australia,” he says.
Woomera (South Australia) recorded 156 km/h wind gusts and the Julia Creek area in Queensland recorded wind gusts of up to 146 km/h.
“The most likely severe storms are in south-east Queensland and north-east NSW with large hail, damaging, winds and heavy rainfall,” Narramore says.
Tomorrow, the weather will clear in parts of South Australia and Victoria as eastern NSW and SE Queensland will most likely bear another round of severe thunderstorms.
The spokesman cautioned that possible flash flooding could happen with damage to homes, properties, businesses and cars.
“Damaging to destructive winds are possible with these storms and that could also bring down trees and power lines causing power outages,” Narramore says.
He says that tomorrow should see a much larger area of storm activity develop across eastern NSW and SE Qld with large hail, destructive winds and very heavy rainfall that could lead to flash flooding.
“We could also see storms again through Thursday and Friday but likely be a bit more isolated,” Narramore says.
“Now, all these storms are also likely to bring widespread rainfall; with the last few days of 30 to 50 mm, we even saw isolated falls of 150 mm on the Logan River. Additional rainfall in the coming days could exacerbate that flood threat, particularly when storms go over the same area.”
TOWNSVILLE RADAR
Meanwhile, images from the new Townsville weather radar are live on the Bureau of Meteorology’s website and weather app.
A new dual-polarised Doppler radar will benefit communities across Townsville, Bowen, Charters Towers, Palm Island and surrounding areas, the service says.
The new radar will provide higher quality images, more visible weather systems and make it easier to distinguish rain and hail.
Bureau of Meteorology Chief Customer Officer Dr Peter Stone said that they completed the new radar project ahead of the upcoming storm season.
“Scheduling radar upgrades is challenging because we need to turn the old radar off while the new one is installed,” he says.
“We try to do this outside of the severe weather season, so that the interruption has the least impact on our customers and the community.
“Townsville is one of several Queensland radar upgrades we have completed in the past 12 months.”
