| Widespread thunderstorms occurred
across central and northern NSW and southern and central Queensland
this afternoon as an upper trough moved across the region. Some of the storms
bordered on being severe, with media reports of a car and caravan overturned
after skidding on hailstones near Coonabarabran, hail and strong
winds north of Tamworth and localised damage from wind squalls at
Nerang on the Qld Gold Coast. Torrential rain fell from a storm band
on the Queensland Central Coast, with Rockhampton Airport recording
13.8mm in 20 minutes to 7.30pm and Heron Island, 150km to the east,
scoring 19.2mm in 10 minutes to 9.55pm.
Storms of this intensity are unusual in
the area in winter, and appear to have resulted from a combination of
cold upper air, good upper outflow in the region of a jet stream entrance,
and a marked tongue of colder dry air in the lower atmosphere moving with
the upper trough, undercutting moist warmer air. The sequence of events,
combined with heavy cloud cover, gave the small town of Texas, on the
Qld/NSW border 85km west of Tenterfield, an unusual distinction today.
The morning was unusually warm, with a minimum of 11.2°, 8 above
average, the highest departure above average in the nation. Cloud cover
and colder air moving in behind the trough then kept the maximum down
to 14.0°, 4.7 below average and the highest departure below average in
the nation.
Heavy showers and thunderstorms preceded
and accompanied a wintry cold front as it crossed Western Australia's
southwest coast this afternoon. The heaviest falls were in Perth
as a line of thunderstorms crossed the city with the front during the
early afternoon. The City recorded 25mm between noon and 2pm, and Perth
Airport 29mm and Bickley 27mm between noon and 3pm.
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as
new and corrected information becomes available, with updates underlined