Australia weather: Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne hammered by rain with fears of flood
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A series of powerful wet weather systems will storm the east coast over the next 10 days.
The southern parts of New South Wales and Victoria’s East Gippsland region are expected to bear the brunt of the miserable weather this week, after torrential rain and golf ball-sized hail that hit parts of southern Queensland on Tuesday.
Residents in western Sydney were also surprised with hail. The suburbs of Penrith, Springwood and Mount Druitt experienced rain, gusts and storms late at night.
The system is expected to bring storms to southeastern Australia on Wednesday and Thursday with the heaviest rain falling on the NSW coastline from Sydney to the south and throughout eastern Victoria.
“By Wednesday morning, a rain band will concentrate over southern NSW and eastern Queensland, while showers and storms are likely to develop again over much of eastern Australia,” said Sky News meteorologist Alison Osborne.
“This cold air hovering over NSW on Wednesday will destabilize the atmosphere, making the environment very favorable again for significant storm activity.”
Ms Osborne said there was a risk of ‘supercells’ – the most dangerous type of severe storm – which could bring damaging golf ball-sized hailstones to rain-weary southeastern Queensland and northern NSW.
The southern parts of New South Wales and Victoria’s East Gippsland region are expected to bear the brunt of the miserable weather this week (pictured, a woman in Sydney in April)
Weatherzone said the low-pressure system directed storms and strong winds clockwise over the east coast (pictured, the storm bands)
Dean Narramore of the Bureau of Meteorology said southern NSW and inland East Gippsland in Victoria would experience the heaviest rain.
“We could see moderate to severe waterfalls, which not only caused isolated flash floods, but we could also see some of our rivers in that part of the world going into minor floods later in the evening and tomorrow,” the forecaster told Sunrise .
“We will see widespread 30mm to 50mm with isolated heavier falls down there with severe storms possibly from Newcastle to South East Queensland.”
The forecaster said the south coast of NSW, the Illawarra and southeastern Victoria could happily “catch a little more rain”, but many rivers in those areas flooded.
He said the agency’s focus in the coming days was on another weather system developing in Western Australia, which would cause even more heavy falls for the state this week and over the weekend.
Mr Narramore said the same system would bring widespread rain and thunderstorms to central and eastern parts of Australia by mid next week.
“That’s a concern, especially for our communities in northern Victoria and on and west of the Ranges in NSW,” he said. ‘That will probably lead to renewed water level rises in many of our flooded rivers, creeks and streams.’
NSW State Emergency Services Assistant Commissioner Nicole Hogan said the SES had received 142 requests for assistance overnight.
Ms Hogan said the agency expected the prolonged flooding in western and inland NSW to continue for some time and asked residents to remain vigilant.
“Our messages are around the school holidays, check live traffic or council websites to see if flooding is happening,” she said.
Parents are advised to take an alternative route if they encounter water on the road and keep their children out of ‘unsanitary’ flooding.
This weather zone map shows the total precipitation we can expect between Monday, September 26 and next Wednesday
Parts of southern Queensland, such as Warwick, Logan and Boonah, were ravaged by torrential rains on Tuesday as the wet weather system took hold of the east coast, with this month being the wettest September since 2016.
Weatherzone said the low-pressure system was directing strong clockwise winds across NSW, Victoria, Queensland and Adelaide.
Darwin will also be hit by showers, with residents expecting rain and thunderstorms on most days over the next week and early October.
The heaviest rainfall over Australia’s northern tropics is expected to fall over the northern interior of Western Australia and the western part of the Northern Territory.
“Some inland areas of WA could get 100 to 200mm of rain over the next seven days, bringing the dry season to an abrupt end,” Weatherzone said.
Thunderstorms are forecast for much of NSW, Victoria and Queensland this week and next week (shown, a weather map showing areas in NSW with a ‘chance of’ storms)
Nearly every part of Australia will experience rain for the next 10 days as a massive rain bomb floods the country
In Victoria, minor flooding continues on the Kiewa and Loddon rivers with a flood watch in the northern, eastern and central watersheds.
BOM said in the 24 hours to 9 a.m. on Tuesday, the highest falls were 44mm at Cape Otway, 41mm at Mount Sabine and 33mm at Apollo Bay.
In Queensland, a severe thunderstorm warning was issued for large areas of the state, including the Gold Coast, Ipswich, parts of Brisbane, the Scenic Rim, the Southern and Darling Downs, South Burnett and Cape York Peninsula.
Thunderstorms were also experienced across NSW on Tuesday evening, particularly in the northeast and the Illawarra region, south of Sydney.
A total of 16 flood warnings remain in effect statewide, with major flooding in the Namoi, Bogan, Lachlan and Macquarie rivers.
The miserable wet weather system is expected to go on and off for at least 10 days.
A large low pressure area is about to collide with a cold trough – leading to significant precipitation in Australia’s states and territories
Heavy rain is forecast for the southern regions of NSW on Tuesday and Wednesday
Weatherzone meteorologist Joel Pippard told Daily Mail Australia that the downpour will intensify over the course of the week with Sydney, Brisbane and possibly Canberra being drenched in showers and getting a possible storm next Monday.
He said “every river west of the Great Dividing Range” would be hit by some sort of flooding if a low-pressure system travels from Alice Springs.
Mr Pippard said a “fairly significant system” will move east through the Northern Territory and South Australia on Monday, reaching the east coast on Wednesday.
The system is expected to collide with a cold front and bring significant precipitation into Victoria, Canberra and NSW – urging residents to follow local forecasts.
Heavy rain, thunderstorms and flooding are expected for major regions of the east coast, especially southern New South Wales and Victoria (pictured, Sydney residents)
The Murray River in southern NSW was in danger of overflowing, but luckily the rain would only exacerbate the current flooding.
Some watersheds in northern Victoria and southern NSW have already exceeded 200 percent of annual rainfall in the past month.
At Wee Waa, just 75 miles (75 miles) northwest, the water is still slowly descending, but it could stay above major flood levels until next week.
The cotton town is protected by a five-mile embankment, but Narrabri Shire mayor Ron Campbell said the rain had destroyed local roads.
“If we get a lot of rain all summer, we could definitely have a record flood — probably something not seen since the 1970s,” Campbell said.