Communities in North Queensland are being warned to brace for heavy rain, severe storms and potential flooding in the days ahead. Jonathan How from the Bureau of Meteorology spoke to the ABC.
00:00Jonathan thank you for joining me. How many flood warnings are in place in Queensland at the moment and which areas are at greatest risk?
00:09Good afternoon Fiona. So we are seeing the first active monsoon burst across northern Australia for the wet season and we are expecting widespread rain and storms over the next week.
00:18And ahead of that we have issued quite a few number of flood watches and warnings.
00:22So it does cover a very broad area all the way from the Mackay Coast up towards Cairns and then inland towards the Gulf Country, western parts of Queensland and also into the Northern Territory.
00:31And looking at the entire area which is now covered by either flood watch or flood warning it's about 1.4 million square kilometres or about 20% of the entire country.
00:40For most people it does mean that if you have a heads up that we could see flooding across any of these catchments over the next few days.
00:46But the immediate concern are for the rivers around the Gulf Country and down towards places like Cloncurry as well as sort of Richmond down towards the Mount Islay area.
00:55For these areas we have also issued flood warnings. We are expected to see major flooding over the coming days for rivers such as the Flinders River and then moderate flooding for places like on the Cloncurry and Western River.
01:05And more broadly across parts of northwestern Queensland can expect to see those rivers start to rise which can impact communities and cause people to become cut off for quite some period of time.
01:14And when is the most severe weather expected to hit?
01:19So for those across northwestern and western Queensland we are expecting the rain to really ramp up tonight.
01:24So we do have a severe weather warning current across the far northwest of Queensland for that rainfall really picking up tonight and then continuing over the next few days into the early week.
01:33And then for those across the northeast tropical coast, so particularly for areas north of Mackay up towards Bowen, Townsville and Cairns, the rain will really wrap up from late Sunday into Monday and really start to peak on Tuesday itself.
01:44So we are looking at quite a prolonged period of severe weather with very heavy rainfall on the way.
01:50How much rain is expected in the days ahead?
01:53So across the northwest of Queensland we are looking at peak six hourly totals of up to 50 to 100 millimetres, even up to 150 millimetres.
02:03That's within that severe weather warning area.
02:05So daily rainfall figures across western Queensland could reach between 100 to 250 millimetres, even isolated falls, and more than 300 millimetres each day.
02:15So these are incredible rainfall totals and we are likely to see some places breach more than half a metre over the next week.
02:21And pretty similar rainfall totals across the northeast tropical coast, particularly the Cassowary coast between Ingham up towards Cairns.
02:27These areas could see between 50 to 150 millimetres each day and peak totals more than 200 millimetres are likely.
02:34So again, accumulations well in excess of 500 millimetres are possible.
02:38And then for pretty much the entire flood watch area all the way down towards central Queensland, we are looking at some very high rainfall figures.
02:44which will really accumulate over very wet catchments.
02:47And of course, while Queensland is facing flood warnings, WA has been dealing with bushfires southeast of Perth at Boddington.
02:53What can you tell me about the conditions firefighters there have been facing?
02:59So thankfully we have now seen temperatures easing back quite a bit across western parts of WA.
03:05So today maximum temperatures sitting in the low 20s near the coast and into the mid 20s inland.
03:09The right number of active fires that we are keeping a close eye on here at the Bureau.
03:13The Boddington fire to the southeast of Mandurah has now been downgraded back to an advice level.
03:19But another fire in the Fitzgerald River National Park, which is about halfway between Albany Esperance, is currently sitting at a watch and knack.
03:25So we are expecting to see these conditions continue quite cold and quite breezy as well.
03:30But temperatures will start to rise.
03:31So we are reminding people to keep across the latest updates and of course follow all advice from local fire authorities.
03:36So conditions are better at the moment but might be getting worse in the days ahead.
03:40Yeah that's right.
03:41So we are expecting temperatures to climb again from tomorrow back up into the high 20s for Perth and the southwest of WA.
03:50And then from Monday to Tuesday temperatures do climb up into the low to mid 30s yet again.
03:54Thankfully not expecting to see temperatures reaching the high 30s to low 40s like what we did over the Christmas period.
04:00But with those high temperatures and gusty winds we are expecting to see pockets of extreme fire danger start to really pick up over the next few days.
04:08So again reminding residents keep across those latest fire weather warnings because when we do see these dry and windy conditions those fires can flare up quite quickly.
04:16And just finally the crews in the Sydney to Hobart yacht race have been facing some pretty rough conditions over the past 24 hours.
04:22Have they seen the worst of it? What can we expect over the next 24 hours?
04:28Yeah so thankfully we're now on an easing trend across the south coast of New South Wales and as those vessels enter the Bass Strait we could still see possibly strong winds tonight.
04:37So there is still a warning along the south coast of New South Wales for those strong to gale force winds.
04:42But then as we head into the evening we are expecting to see those winds east from the south and then sort of shift a bit more east to northeastly as we head into Sunday morning.
04:49So that's great news for those passing Flinders Island and then down the east coast of Tasmania I should say.
04:55We will see those winds swinging around a bit north and north easterly.
04:58So there won't be sort of sailing up wind and thankfully we are now seeing clearer skies but seas are still quite choppy.
05:04So hopefully smooth sailing all the way into Hobart in the next couple of days.
05:08Hopefully an easier journey ahead. Thank you so much. That's Jonathan Howe from the Bureau of Meteorology.
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