00:00Another weekend, another thunderstorm outbreak for eastern parts of the country.
00:06It's been a bit of a familiar tale in the last month or so, and we could see it again today.
00:11So really the story for today is widespread cloud, rain and possible thunderstorms across northern and eastern areas.
00:19And this could affect some pretty large population centres from southeast Queensland and Brisbane down through Sydney,
00:25down towards Canberra as well, even into eastern parts of Victoria.
00:29We have seen some sizable thunderstorm activity over the last several days, including last night in Brisbane,
00:35and something like that could well be repeated again today.
00:39It looks like, as is pretty typical for these storm outbreaks, that activity will ramp up into the afternoon.
00:45So this afternoon into this evening is probably the peak time of day.
00:49That's when we could see the most significant storm activity, the most significant rain as well,
00:53and certainly a good day to be keeping an eye on severe thunderstorm warnings.
00:58So just as a reminder, when we issue severe thunderstorm warnings, they only have a very short lifespan because they're only issued when those storms start to develop.
01:06So if you see a warning pop up in your area, it probably means that there's going to be a severe thunderstorm moving overhead in the next 30 minutes to two hours.
01:15Always good to keep the Bureau of Meteorology's website on hand as well.
01:19Now, Angus, I want to ask, though, you know, you're talking about the severe thunderstorms and the warnings that are currently in place.
01:26Are there particular areas that you're looking at?
01:29Well, the areas we're looking at are really broad.
01:33It's too hard to pinpoint down to one specific location.
01:36The risk covers a massive region of the country.
01:39So we're looking at the potential for thunderstorms right across northern Australia from northern WA through the Northern Territory and northern Queensland,
01:46and then pretty much right down the east coast, central and eastern Queensland, down through southeast Queensland, central and eastern New South Wales and eastern Victoria.
01:56So within that massive area, there will likely be dozens, if not more, of regions of thunderstorms.
02:02You just can't pinpoint exactly which spot might be hit the hardest because the ingredients are there across such a broad region that it could be many different areas that are hit hard.
02:11It could be hundreds of thousands or even millions of Australians that are affected by severe thunderstorms.
02:16So it's a pretty broad region and it's a large portion of the country which may be impacted today.
02:22Wow, you're really talking about a big range right across Australia, aren't you?
02:26But I also want to talk about the fact that we've also seen some snowfall on the mainland, Alps as well.
02:33Are we expecting more as we head into late November?
02:36We actually are looking at the potential for another round of snow, another bout of snow coming in.
02:42Late this weekend or early next week, kind of Sunday night, Monday morning, we see a fresh region of cold air and snow move across the south.
02:51Tasmania, Victoria, maybe parts of South Australia.
02:54Probably no snow in South Australia, but they'll see some of the cold there.
02:58And while we might typically, over the course of spring, in an average year, we might see one good dump of snow.
03:04So this could be the third or fourth time in the past month that we've seen snow in some of these elevated parts of southern Australia.
03:10So quite an unusual November shaping up for some of those southern mountains with fairly frequent bouts of snow so far.
03:16It does seem to be unusual.
03:18Now, I'm also reading the fact that there's a possible rare cyclone that's developing next week as well.
03:23Where's that?
03:25Yeah, that's definitely one we're watching very, very closely.
03:27We're pretty early on in the tropical cyclone season, and we are already seeing signs that the first tropical cyclone of this current season could form in the coming week.
03:38It's not a sure thing, but it currently has been assessed as a moderate risk.
03:42So that's about a 30% to 50% chance that we could see a tropical cyclone during the second half of next week, probably Thursday onwards.
03:50So the area that we're watching is north of the top end of the Northern Territory, so north of Darwin in those very warm waters north of the country.
04:00At the moment, our long-range forecast information is suggesting that most likely what we'll see, if a tropical cyclone does form,
04:07is that it will stay over the water and not make its way onto the country.
04:11But it could get close enough to bring some strong winds and heavy rain and some big waves across that Northern Territory top end coast.
04:19And, of course, tropical cyclones, they're really difficult to nail down, especially four, five, six, seven days in advance.
04:25So we'll be constantly assessing the latest information, and that story may change.
04:30So definitely across the northern latitudes of the country, particularly in the Northern Territory.
04:34Stay up to date with tropical cyclone forecasts as we approach and move through next week,
04:39because certainly there's a little bit of activity over those northern waters.
04:42All right, definitely one to watch out for.
04:45Senior Meteorologist, Angus Hines, always great to have you on the show chatting with us.
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