00:00Temperatures and winds aren't too bad but the vegetation is very dry and then
00:06even moderate winds are getting a bit of a kick up on the fire and we're already
00:10seeing pretty big smoke plumes coming out from this fire and as we get into
00:13tonight and to tomorrow we've got a cold front in Western South Australia at the
00:18moment. It's going to move across South Australia tonight and into Western
00:21Victoria tomorrow. Now ahead of that we're going to have very strong and
00:25gusty winds. We've got a severe weather warning current for much of Western
00:28Victoria and eastern parts of South Australia for damaging winds of 90 to
00:33100 kilometres an hour which is going to really put a push onto this fire.
00:37Temperatures are going to be into the mid to high 30s, low 40s for large areas
00:41as well and then after a few hours of those strong and gusty northerly winds
00:45this front will then move in with a very strong and sharp westerly change. So we
00:49could see the winds fluctuate between northerly, northwesterly, maybe some
00:52northeasterly and then swing right around to a west or southwesterly in the
00:56mid to late afternoon hours tomorrow right across the fire area and because
01:01of the mountainous terrain as well we could get local variations in that wind
01:04as well. So it's going to be a complex, dangerous and erratic fire day tomorrow
01:09across much of the Grampians. Incredibly so. So just repeating that, winds of up
01:14around up to 100 k's an hour could hit that fire tomorrow. Yeah that's right.
01:21Most of the gusts will be in that 50-60 sustained area but we could see
01:25gusts, that's right, into 90 to 100 kilometres an hour and that's going to
01:29cause some major problems. Yeah and just going through this once
01:33again because it's important information for people in that area, that
01:36peak area of concern with that Grampians fire is going to be through the
01:41afternoon tomorrow. Yeah that's right, pretty much. We'll see those winds pick
01:45up from the late morning from there somewhere between northeasterly to
01:48northwesterly so the fire will probably run very quickly to the south then that
01:53wind change will come sometime in the mid to late afternoon and then that'll
01:56shift the fire from running southerly to into more of an easterly direction as
02:00that wind change comes in and that's the biggest concern when we have this very
02:04erratic and dangerous shift in the direction in which the fire goes and
02:08that's dependent on that wind change which at this stage will be the afternoon
02:11and evening. And obviously if there are any other fires that pop up in Victoria
02:14in the next 24 hours that'll be incredibly dangerous with them too. But
02:18just going to the situation in South Australia now because that was today was
02:22kind of like the principal fire danger area for South Australia with conditions
02:27ahead of what they were going to be in Victoria tomorrow. Thankfully there's
02:32kind of no major fires of significance there today. Yeah so far so good
02:38we've still got a few hours to go of course and yeah main issue or worry area is the
02:43Mount Lofty Ranges and the west coast of South Australia. The front will move
02:47through the west coast in the next few hours but probably won't get to the
02:50Mount Lofty areas until the early hours of the morning. So it's gonna be a very
02:53warm and breezy night through Adelaide and the Lofty Ranges and then the
02:57westerly change will hit them sometime tomorrow morning, mid to late morning.
03:00And we don't want to neglect the rest of the country on Christmas Day
03:06Dean. So yeah what can you basically tell us about the rest of the nation including Tassie?
03:12Yeah look today it's almost a perfect Christmas Day right around the
03:17country. Right across the eastern Australia we've got temperatures in the
03:19high 20s low 30s with lots of sunshine so beautiful for barbecues pools and
03:24beaches. Even down into Victoria we've seen a warm and sunny day but things
03:28will turn tomorrow as we've just heard. Tasmania being the low to mid 20s today
03:32they'll get into the high 20s to low 30s tomorrow with some showers ahead of that
03:36front. Adelaide and South Australia hot day today cool change tonight into
03:41tomorrow morning. WA very different they're actually quite cool at the
03:44moment breezy conditions around Perth pretty dry in the south and across our
03:48tropical north pretty cool in Darwin today only 30 months of morning rain
03:52then just showers and storms hit and miss across the top. And no signs yet of
03:57a monsoon trough developing over over the north of the nation which is what
04:01generally spawns cyclones? Yeah absolutely and it's not even into
04:05Southeast Asia which is normally we see some activity there at the moment so
04:08we're probably at least into the new year before we see any signs of
04:12monsoonal activity across northern Australia.
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