Severe weather can develop quickly and threaten lives and property. You can reduce the impact by getting ready before it happens.

Every year, October to April is Australia's peak time for severe thunderstorms, tropical cyclones, flooding, heatwaves, and bushfires.

Know your weather. Know your risk.

Let's take a closer look at some of the impacts of severe weather, so you can be prepared.

Severe thunderstorms are more common during the warmer months bringing heavy rainfall, damaging winds and the risk of flooding. While they can be experienced anywhere in Australia, the biggest risk for severe thunderstorms is along the east coast including northern New South Wales and southern Queensland. There's also a significant risk through inland Western Australia and across the tropical north.

While tropical cyclones can form at any time, our official tropical cyclone season is between November and April. While we usually have around 4 tropical cyclones cross Australia's coast in a year, we've always had at least one in every year since the 1970s. Last season we had 8 tropical cyclones in the region, and 4 crossed Australia's mainland – Jasper, Kirrily, Lincoln and Megan. While the number, location and intensity of tropical cyclones varies every year, any tropical cyclone almost always brings damaging winds, heavy rainfall and flooding. Ex-tropical cyclones can move slowly overland and also bring heavy rainfall and flooding to southern parts of the country. Even tropical cyclones and tropical lows that stay offshore can have severe impacts like dangerous surf with large waves causing coastal erosion. While we can't predict the exact timing, intensity or location of an individual tropical cyclone more than 7 days in advance, this season a near average number of tropical cyclones is likely. But remember, it only takes one to significantly impact communities.

Floods can happen anywhere in Australia. Last season widespread flooding affected large areas across the country, including Queensland, the Northern Territory, Victoria, New South Wales and Western Australia. Some of which was caused by rainfall from ex-tropical cyclones. Riverine and localised flash flooding is more common during the severe weather season, particularly across northern and eastern parts of the country.

Heat stress can affect anyone's health. Over the warmer months, Australia has an increased risk of severe and extreme heatwaves. Hot nights make it harder to recover from the heat of the day.

There's always a risk of dangerous and destructive fires in Australia in the warmer months. Fire authorities are advising an increased fire risk for parts of Queensland, the Northern Territory, western Victoria and the south-east corner of South Australia during spring. Towards summer, the increased fire risk may extend to more southern areas as it only takes a few warm and windy days to dry out fuel loads. We'll be monitoring the weather conditions and working with fire authorities to issue fire danger ratings to keep you informed of the risk.

If you live in a high-risk area, now is the time to prepare your home and property, review and update your emergency plans and create your emergency kits. Your local emergency authority provides advice on how to prepare.

Learn more about severe weather – visit bom.gov.au/knowyourweather

Keep up to date with warnings and advice from the Bureau of Meteorology and your local emergency authority.

Find warnings on our website and download the BOM Weather app. In the app you set up notifications to get weather warnings direct to your phone.

Stay safe.