Weather News

Rain looms for some drought-weary parts of Australia

Ben Domensino, Wednesday August 5, 2020 - 17:22 AEST

Useful rain will spread over South Australia, Victoria, NSW, and southern Queensland during the second half of this week.

A low pressure system that's traversing Australia from west to east this week will produce widespread rain across multiple states in the coming days.

The low will cause rain and thunderstorms to spread across large areas of South Australia and central Australia between Wednesday and Friday. On Wednesday afternoon, severe thunderstorm warnings were in place for parts of South Australia and the Northern Territory.

The cloud and rain will also combine with a cold air mass to drop daytime temperatures several degrees below average in South Australia. Adelaide is only forecast to reach up to 12 degrees on Thursday and 10 degrees on Friday. The city hasn't registered a daytime maximum temperature at or below 10 degrees since 2005. There is also a chance that snow will settle in elevated areas of South Australia on Thursday night into Friday morning.

Rain and storms will spread across Victoria, NSW, and southern Queensland between Thursday and the weekend. Most of the rain for inland areas will fall during Thursday and Friday, before the heaviest falls contract towards eastern NSW and possibly eastern Victoria on the weekend.

Temperatures will drop several degrees below average in parts of eastern and southeastern Australia as the rain, cloud and cold air moves through. Daytime temperature could be 10 degrees cooler than usual for this time of year in some areas.

This system will also bring snow to the mountains in southeastern Australia, possibly heavy snow in parts of southern NSW, particularly on the eastern side of the ranges.

Image: Forecast accumulated rain between Wednedsay and Sunday, according to the ECMWF-HRES model.

All up between Wednesday and Sunday, widespread totals of 20-40mm are likely across large areas of South Australia, Victoria, NSW and southern Queensland. Heavier falls of around 50-100mm are possible in southeastern NSW and eastern Victoria.

Severe weather is likely to occur during this weather event, so be sure to keep up to date with the latest warnings in your state or territory.

- Weatherzone

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