Hello from the Bureau here with a severe weather update on the strong cold front bringing damaging wind gusts to southeastern parts of the country.

Now there are already multiple severe weather warnings in place, including for all of Tasmania, for the lower South East of South Australia, on and south of the ranges for Victoria and the southern ranges of New South Wales. Now, anywhere within these areas damaging wind gusts are either occurring or are possible. And so what this means is for Tasmania, wind gusts in excess of 100 km/h, but for the mainland in excess of 90 km/h.

Now there's also a risk of severe thunderstorms with destructive wind gusts. So this is wind gusts in excess of 125 km/h about the west and north coast of Tasmania and the offshore islands. And these are most likely during the first half of this afternoon.

Now damaging to destructive winds have the potential to bring down trees and cause property damage, to create hazardous driving conditions in those crosswinds, or with the debris strewn across roads, and also bring down power lines and cause power outages.

Now, the winds are expected to ease below threshold for South Australia and western Victoria later this afternoon, but for eastern parts of Victoria and New South Wales later this evening. They will be a little slower to clear for Tasmania however, and that would be tomorrow morning.

Now, what I'm showing you here is just the radar imagery over the last six hours. So this is where the showers have occurred, and it's really just highlighting that the majority of them have streamed across Tasmania, with very little for Victoria or South Australia. In fact, in the 24 hours until 9 am this morning, there were widespread rainfall totals of 30 to 50 mm in the gauges across western and central parts of Tasmania.

And this rain is falling over already very wet soils and saturated catchments. So we do have a number of minor flood warnings in place at the moment. And that includes for the Meander, the North Esk, the Huon and the River Derwent. And there is a risk that the River Derwent will be upgraded to a moderate flood warning later today.

Now more rainfall is on the forecast this weekend, so we also have flood watches in place for much of the state. And that's just flagging that there is the potential for minor flooding outside of these areas.

So let's take a look at the system now. It scoots out into the Tasman Sea today, but then we've got this next trough pushing over Tasmania during Saturday morning. And that's going to bring another burst of showers and cold air – snow down to 600 m. But then on Sunday another front, with this one bringing an increase in showers to Victoria and even some snow to the alpine areas of Victoria and New South Wales, while dropping the snow level down to 400 m for Tasmania.

Now, with these really windy conditions, it's generating very large waves off the coast of western Victoria – 7 to 8 m offshore as well for Tasmania. But those waves are expected to abate as the system clears away and the winds ease.
So if you or anyone you know lives about these parts of south eastern Australia, now's the time to stay up to date with our warnings. And you can do that by accessing them through our website, our app, or social media. And as always, listen to all advice from your local emergency services.

Bye for now.