Weather Update Tuesday 23 July 2024: Heavy rain in south-west WA, windy in south-eastern Australia

Hello, Sarah from the Bureau, with an update on the heavy rainfall that moved across southern parts of WA and the strong winds that are forecast to develop about south-eastern parts of the country.

So here it is, that cold front that brought the heavy rainfall to the south-west.

Widespread totals of 60 to 90mm.

The highest of which was 91mm at Mount William.

 

 

But 50mm of that fell in just two hours of really intense rainfall for residents there.

Shifting the focus to eastern parts of the country, though, we've got this strong high bringing really settled, calm and clear conditions.

And it's actually in between these strong high and this cold front that we’re getting a squeezing of the isobars, a tightening of the pressure gradient indicating strengthening north-westerly winds ahead of that front.

Now, if we look at 1.5km above in the atmosphere to what the winds are doing there.

That's where they're not influenced by the friction of the earth.

We can see that the winds really start to strengthen in excess of 100km/h during Wednesday into Thursday.

Now, winds at this level can also be dragged down to the surface by any showers or rain, where they can be experienced as wind gusts.

And because of that, we do have Severe Weather Warnings for these damaging wind gusts for central and western ranges of Victoria and also the Otways and the northern suburbs of Melbourne as well.

 

Now these are for the winds to develop during the early hours of Wednesday morning - tomorrow morning - up to 90km/h.

So winds of that strength are strong enough to bring down both trees and power lines.

That's associated with that cold front.

It's mostly the winds that are of the major concern, but also there is some showers.

Nowhere near as heavy as what we saw out in WA, generally 5 to 15mm reaching Adelaide overnight Wednesday into Thursday.

Now on Thursday those really strong winds are expected to extend into eastern parts of Victoria and south-eastern parts of New South Wales, with more wind warnings likely to be issued.

So if you live within those areas, stay up to date with our latest information.

So here we go through Thursday.

Those showers starting to develop through the Melbourne area during midmorning before, contracting into eastern parts of the ranges and south-eastern parts of New South Wales as well.

Now there is the potential for more snow with this system - great news for the resorts - 5 to 15cm expected and we do even have another follow up front through here that's forecast across south-eastern parts of the country over the weekend.

There isn’t as much moisture with that system, but there is the potential for another five centimeters of snow for the resorts.

And just really interestingly, the humidity starts to build across the tropics with an unseasonal cloud band that starts to develop over the weekend as well that we're keeping an eye on.

Temperature wise: fun fact it was far colder inland Queensland this morning than it was in Tasmania.

In fact, records were broken for the July minimum temperatures this morning across several locations, and tomorrow is going to be another cold one for inland parts of Queensland and New South Wales, with widespread subzero temperatures.

Far milder in the south-east and out in the west as well.

Maximums tomorrow actually 2 to 4 degrees above the July average across eastern and central parts of the country.

Much colder out in the west and that's in the wake of that cold front.

And as we move into Thursday, it is actually going to be a fairly mild morning for south-eastern parts due to those strong northerly winds keeping the temperature up.
 
And then on Thursday, again, temperatures generally near average across the far south-east, grading to slightly warmer up in the northern parts of eastern Australia.

It's not until the weekend that we get those really cold temperatures coming with that second front.

But if you're wanting to know more about what's going on in your neck of the woods, then you can head to the Bureau's website, the app, or social media.

Otherwise, we'll see you next time. Bye for now.