Severe thunderstorms, extreme fire dangers and strong, gusty winds are expected for some across southern Australia in the coming days, as a low-pressure trough and cold front move through. We can see the low-pressure trough on the satellite image behind me, already lying across inland parts of Western Australia.

Let’s get a picture of how that trough will move east over the coming days. I’m looking at winds above the surface, around one and a half kilometres above the ground. I’m doing this to get a sense of where the strongest winds are moving in the atmosphere and also an indication of how high those top wind gusts might be that are brought to the surface with any showers and thunderstorms.

As you can see today, that system is lying across inland parts of Western Australia. It will slowly move east through the rest of our Wednesday, pushing some stronger winds across the southern interior of Western Australia and into western parts of South Australia too. Very hot as well ahead of this low-pressure trough. We’re looking at temperatures 8 to 15 degrees above the average. We’re also expecting extreme fire dangers for the Eucla district of Western Australia today.

Let’s take a look at our thunderstorm forecast for today. Storms are possible across many parts of Australia today, but I’m really going to focus around our low-pressure trough in the west. Storms are possible across much of the interior of Western Australia, some of those central districts too. But we haven’t got any yellow colours in the west today, so severe thunderstorms are not expected through the course of our Wednesday. Any storms in WA today may produce some gusty winds, but little rainfall is expected.

Let’s take a look at tomorrow now. Tomorrow we’re going to see the low-pressure trough slipping towards the southeast, meeting up with this cold front pushing across Tasmania. Warm, gusty north to north-westerly winds will stream across parts of South Australia, Victoria, Tasmania and even parts of New South Wales, ahead of that trough. We’re expecting thunderstorms once again to move east with the trough. You can see them possible across southern parts of South Australia and western parts of Victoria as well. But once again, we’re not expecting severe storms in these areas tomorrow. Gusty winds remain a risk as well though.

With the warm and windy weather, we’re also looking at elevated fire dangers ahead of this system. You can see a lot of yellow on this map for tomorrow’s fire danger ratings. That’s showing us that high fire dangers are forecast through much of southeast South Australia, Victoria, eastern New South Wales and Tasmania. In fact, we’re forecasting extreme fire dangers across the Mallee district in Victoria tomorrow. All of this is telling us that that warm, windy weather is going to produce some dangerous conditions for fire weather.

Into Friday, our low-pressure trough will move up the New South Wales coast, likely reaching the Sydney area in the late afternoon or evening with a fresh, gusty southerly change. It’ll continue up the northern New South Wales coast through the later part of Friday into Saturday. Ahead of the system, we are once again expecting thunderstorms.

Looking at Friday’s thunderstorm forecast, we can see storms are possible across much of the east, pushing into southern Queensland, throughout New South Wales, northern Victoria, parts of eastern South Australia and western Tasmania as well. So possible in many areas, but the one part of the country we really want to focus on is this yellow area on our map here — that shows us where severe storms are possible on Friday. And it does include much of the northern inland of New South Wales, central inland and parts of the east coast too. That includes much of the Hunter district, the Sydney metro area and parts of the Illawarra.

In those areas on Friday, we may see severe thunderstorms bringing us damaging wind gusts or large hail, so be aware of that risk on Friday, particularly in the afternoon and evening.

Now, how much rain are we expecting with this system? The short answer is not much. Very low, patchy rainfall totals for South Australia and Victoria, a little more through western Tasmania as is usually the case, and we could see some patchy moderate falls through parts of north-eastern New South Wales. But those moderate falls are going to be tied to thunderstorms, so may be few and far between.

With the risk of severe thunderstorms, extreme fire dangers and warm, windy weather, it’s a good idea to keep on top of the latest forecasts and warnings via the Bureau’s website, the BOM Weather app and via our social media. Stay safe and we’ll catch you next time.