Severe Weather Update: Cold front to bring thunderstorm outbreak to the south-east and Extreme Fire Danger for Victoria & South Australia.
Video current: 12:30pm AEDT 12 February 2024. Courtesy: Bureau of Meteorology
Video current: 12:30pm AEDT 12 February 2024. Courtesy: Bureau of Meteorology
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00:00 A powerful cold front is forecast to sweep across southeastern Australia on Tuesday,
00:04 bringing extreme fire danger to many, and an outbreak of thunderstorms as well.
00:09 Let's start by looking at the synoptic situation.
00:11 This is the front we're talking about, it's moving up from the southwest on Monday, but
00:15 really Tuesday is the day we're flagging for severe weather.
00:18 As we bring this to a halt at midday on Tuesday we see two weather features of note.
00:23 This dashed blue line is the initial wind change, but the more significant weather will
00:27 be associated with this cold front, that's the chillier air, and that risk of thunderstorms.
00:32 So at midday on Tuesday we can see dry, gusty winds ahead of these weather features being
00:38 drawn across the southeast from the centre of the continent.
00:41 That's going to lead to a warm day.
00:43 These are the forecast temperatures for midday tomorrow, 35 degrees in Melbourne, upper 30s
00:47 for some northern parts of Victoria, high 20s across Tasmania.
00:51 So those areas which are warm, they're dry, and they're experiencing gusty winds, well
00:56 that's the recipe for extreme fire danger.
00:58 Here's a look at the fire danger ratings for Tuesday across the southeast with a number
01:02 of places in that orange extreme rating, through northern and northwestern Victoria, and some
01:08 central and southeastern parts of South Australia.
01:11 It is likely that we will see fire weather warnings issued for these areas, if so, they
01:15 will be issued on Monday evening ahead of Tuesday.
01:19 Let's go back to the front now and see what happens as it crosses landfall.
01:23 On Tuesday afternoon, note this increase in rain and storms across central and eastern
01:27 Victoria, northeastern Tasmania, some parts of southern New South Wales as well.
01:32 In fact we can bring on our thunderstorm risk map to see which areas are most likely to
01:37 see storms.
01:38 This pale green area shows where thunderstorms are likely, quite widespread across southeastern
01:43 Australia tomorrow.
01:44 The yellow area is where we may see severe thunderstorms.
01:48 If we do get severe thunderstorms on Tuesday afternoon or evening, it will be because they
01:52 are causing damaging wind gusts.
01:54 That's wind exceeding 90km/h that can bring down trees and power lines and cause damage
01:59 to property and infrastructure.
02:02 It seems that wind will be the main threat with these storms, there's not a lot of rain
02:06 in the forecast across southeastern parts of the country because this front is moving
02:09 through really really quickly, so it doesn't rain for long.
02:12 Most places are in the blue, that means there's single digit rainfall totals expected, although
02:16 with the thunderstorms we might see a few areas pick up between 20 and 40mm of rain.
02:21 On Tuesday afternoon or Tuesday evening.
02:24 Finally a little look to what happens on Wednesday as this front continues to move eastwards
02:28 across Victoria, then into New South Wales.
02:30 Not getting into too much detail yet but we will likely see some storms develop around
02:34 this area, possibly from Wollongong up to Newcastle, and could even see a southerly
02:38 buster up that coastline with a strong change through Sydney sometime on Wednesday afternoon.
02:44 So it's going to be active weather across the southeast of the country for the next
02:47 few afternoons, do stay up to date with your latest forecasts and warnings at the Bureau
02:52 app or website.
02:53 Thanks very much for checking in.
02:54 [Music]