The eastern states are set for another week of wet and stormy weather before the heat starts to flow around the country leading up to Christmas.
Christmas has come early for many of Australia’s driest regions.
Last week’s rain event turned dry paddocks into lush pasture across most of eastern Australia.
Some pockets of the country have gone from drought to flood within days.
And for some of our biggest cities and fertile land the best totals are still to come.
From August-to-October Australia experienced its driest such spell on record – making El Nino look like King of the weather.
But this month the weather patterns have been turned upside down.
Many parts of Queensland saw 100-200mm of rainfall – some collecting more than they’d seen in the previous five months combined.
The other eastern states and the Territory have all experienced substantial rainfall, and there’s still plenty more on the way.
A new band of rain and storms is crawling across Queensland with a focus on the northwest and centre today.
On Tuesday, rain will continue to soak the centre of the state but continue to edge eastwards with Brisbane and surrounds in line for a wet Tuesday afternoon.
A pool of cold upper level air is marching into South Australia at the moment, causing the air to become unstable with thunderstorms today.
By tomorrow this upper system will move into NSW and VIC and collide with the humid air in those states leading to widespread areas of rain and thunderstorms by Tuesday afternoon.
On Wednesday this event will cause a new low to form near the NSW south Coast, helping the rain to target the southeast mainland of the country.
By Wednesday night many parts of the southeast will see 50-100mm.
Sydney and Canberra should see showers tending to periods of rain on Tuesday with the risk of thunderstorms. The wet weather is likely to come and go on Wednesday as well.
Melbourne could see showers at times early this week, but Wednesday looks like the key day for cloud and rain.
There are signs of one last hurrah for the eastern wet weather event.
Next weekend one final upper level system could collide with the humid air and cause showers and thunderstorms to spread across the eastern of the country.
From about Monday 4th December Australia’s weather patterns will start to shift again with drier weather starting to take shape.
This should be even more evident by 11th December as longer range forecast models are picking the drying trend.
(SKY NEWS)
