Australia: This Massive Storm Just Got Stronger...

Added: 2026-05-26

[00:00:01]Good day folks. My name is Josh from Cyclone Sauce and this is your detailed daily Australiawide weather forecast update for the 26th of May 2026. It's a big storm day today and as we head in towards tomorrow and Thursday, we're going to see severe thunderstorms fire up across Queensland that will then march into the Brisbane metro area. Then after that, we have significant rainfall that could result in more flooding through eastern portions of New South Wales that might make its way down to Sydney. It doesn't stop there because after that, one of the strongest winter fronts we've seen in the last 12 months will then go on to impact Western Australia and this is all happening in the next couple of days. So, this will be a big forecast update here. Now, first things first, if you are brand new to my channel, please do consider subscribing. We're getting closer and closer to 100,000 which we're trying to hit by the end of the year. But, let's get stuck straight into the details right now with a look at the current satellite picture. You can see the main factor today is this low pressure system down here. Again, same spot as yesterday. This one's just next to Adelaide. Uh, and it is driving with it a lot of moisture down from the north.

[00:00:57]You can see under the influence of this low pressure system, thunderstorms and showers extending through most of New South Wales today and some rainfall beginning to extend in towards the southeast of New South Wales, translating over the border into portions of Victoria. Another glum day is expected pretty much in this entire southeastern sector of Australia, encompassing all of Victoria, most of South Australia, pretty much all of New South Wales, portions of Tazzy, and even southern Queensland. And it's again all under the influence of this upper trough and low pressure system combination. And this upper trough is going to be the driving force behind a lot of the weather happening in the next couple of days. One of the reasons as to why it's expected to be so severe. So plan it through throughout the course of today.

[00:01:33]You can see areas of rainfall and storm activity expected through most of New South Wales today, particularly along the western peripheries of the Great Dividing Range as well as coastal areas as well. A complex interaction between low pressure begins to unfold later today. We have the surface low pressure system out here into South Australia and a developing surface low pressure down here around southeastern New South Wales and eastern Victoria. This one here becomes obsolete pretty quickly diving down into the Tasman Sea. This one here is what's going to be the main driver over the next couple of days. This system hooks it up into southern Queensland and then begins to track over towards New South Wales and then towards the end of the week will get itself wedged here along the New South Wales coastline into the Tasman Sea and this is when problems are expected to unfold.

[00:02:13]So let's watch that happen right now.

[00:02:16]Playing it through through Wednesday.

[00:02:17]You can see that surface low still out here in northeastern portions of South Australia. The combination of this surface low and a couple of surface troughs ahead of it as well as an upper trough above these surface troughs is going to present us with a severe thunderstorm outbreak tomorrow on Wednesday through southern and central portions of Queensland. Again, the bulk of the thunderstorm activity is expected to occur along or along the western peripheries of the great dividing range through the central coal fields and highlands into portions of the benet the Capricornia and then into portions of the war and the Marinoa forecast districts. And the reason behind this is a combination between inflowing moisture here from the Pacific Ocean. And this is northeasterly flowing moisture which means it's going to have some heat associated with it. The upper trough that's going to be moving through this region here, which is a feature that we'll take a look at in just a second in the upper levels of the atmosphere. and then the surface trough which will be the trigger for these thunderstorms here getting itself positioned just towards the west of Roma out to about Charleville and Arafella. Now these thunderstorms are expected to be severe particularly in a corridor where discrete storms maybe even supercellular storms are going to be possible here along the western peripheries of the great dividing range towards the west of Towa and Warick maybe towards the west of Karoy and then up towards Bill Wheeler and into the Banana Shai for example just south of Rockampton and the west of Gladston. You can see here thunderstorms are expected to be quite widespread in nature. They're going to develop early on in the day as well, probably from as early as about 9 or 10:00 into the morning. We'll see some thunderstorms developing around the Roma area. And they'll quickly upscale into what we know as a meascal convective system. We've got two areas of thunderstorms to watch. The first area is going to be out towards the west.

[00:03:48]That's going to be the early morning outbreak here along the trough and the dry line associated with the trough. And you can see these thunderstorms will very quickly become quite messy and disorganized. These thunderstorms aren't that concerning. We will see some micro bursts in a few of these storms, some high lightning flash rates as well, but for the most part, this is not our severe risk out here. There will be some severe thunderstorms, but overall, most of these thunderstorms will be quite tame in nature. Mostly lightning, damaging winds, and heavy rainfall based. This is going to be the area to watch here. The upper trough, which is the feature into the upper levels that I keep promising we'll take a look at, it's a access and the associated short waves with it is going to brush along this region here along the western periphery of the Great Dividing Range.

[00:04:26]And when those short waves trigger thunderstorm development out here, coupling that with the moisture coming in off the Pacific Ocean, an elevated cape values here or instability in the environment and a pretty strong capping inversion, particularly earlier on into the day, which as we discussed yesterday, will work well out here and producing discrete thunderstorms and discrete supercells in an environment that's not going to be that messy. These are the thunderstorms to watch. This will be where those thunderstorms do potentially go severe with large hailstones possible, damaging winds, high lightning flash rates, and maybe even some heavy rainfall associated with some of the micro bursts in some of these thunderstorms. Then these two areas of convection or thunderstorm activity merge up. This will happen later into the afternoon and into the early evening hours before they slowly track across towards the west along that trough. This is going to mean that Wednesday night is going to be very stormy. Widespread thunderstorm activity is expected through the Touumba region down to Warick along the New South Wales Queensside border even into portions and most of northeastern New South Wales expecting expecting thundery showers through Wednesday night. This will also extend north into the Capricornia coast about as far north as Rockampton where a thunderstorm is also possible and out towards the west to Quilpy, Adaval, Charalilla, and Orthella and everywhere in between by the southeast coast can expect thunderstorm activity Wednesday night. As this trough and associated surface flow begin pushing further out towards the east, we'll continue to see thunderstorm activity move into the Sunshine Coast. And this will happen early on Thursday morning and then eventually down into the Brisbane metro area. This is where things get quite concerning. Thursday now sticks out to me as a significant storm day for Brisbane. We highlighted this as a possibility in yesterday's forecast update. But let me show you what's going on here. We've got convergence now beginning to develop along the coast.

[00:06:02]You can see the trough with an adjacent low pressure system here on the northeastern periphery of said trough.

[00:06:07]That is going to result in some convergence where these winds become a lot more kinkedked and tightly packed around this trough here. And it's inflow winds. It's coming off the coastline here which means it's going to be off the east Australian current which is very moisture laden and very rich in moisture right now. swinging into the southeast coast. And as you can see, those colors become very intense here on the rainfall forecast. That will translate to a period of heavy rainfall here along the southeast coast. And this is the sort of rainfall that we saw yesterday. Uh not yesterday, last week rather, early on, uh Monday, I believe it was. We saw some very significant rainfall come through into southeastern Queens here from a system that was pretty similar to this. And it was quite a prolonged rainfall event. I don't believe this one will be as prolific. I do still want to see what the convective allowing models have to say about this, which we'll have an idea of in tomorrow morning's forecast update. But this could get quite gnarly for Brisbane. We could be talking about an extended period of very heavy rainfall here through Thursday morning across the southeast coast, including Brisbane, the Gold Coast, up to Kabulra and Brabby Island, and then through portions of the Sunshine Coast as far north as Harvey Bay and maybe even Bundberg. So, this could be interesting. Again, we do want to see what the convective allowing forecast models have to say. We'll have some answers on that by tomorrow morning at the absolute latest here, but this is going to be quite concerning here. We'll definitely keep an eye on that. And the driving force behind all of this just briefly, I know we're a little bit out of order right now, is the upper trough.

[00:07:24]Now, upper troughs are features similar to what surface troughs are. They trigger thunderstorms and they can create contrasts in wind and temperature boundaries, but this is an upper trough, which is 5 1/2 km above the surface of Queensland. And you can see it is a very defined upper trough. Uh, normally an upper trough has a pretty weak access.

[00:07:41]uh kind of like a bit of a kink in the wind streamlines. This one is very strong. You can see that kink there, very pronounced. And that is going to increase not only wind shear, but it's also going to create a temperature contrast between the uh surface levels, which will be warmer, and the upper levels, which would be colder when compared to average. Now, that generates steep lapse rates uh and a very uh sharp temperature uh incline, which means that we are going to see elevated convective available potential energy here through most of central portions of Queensland on Wednesday and Thursday when the upper trough is going to be over the region.

[00:08:10]Now, that coupling of high wind shear values and high cape values or instability values, that's going to work very well for thunderstorms and that's going to be the fuel, the trigger to get these thunderstorms off the ground. And you can see cape values are certainly going to be there over inland portions of Queensland on Wednesday. Significant Cape values widespread around the 4 to 800 mark. A couple of spots expecting to crack the thousand mark. A little bit of a reduction when compared to yesterday's forecast, but this is still well and truly enough to get severe thunderstorms off the ground. And quite prolific for the month of May as well. Thursday, even more Cape expected to get itself jammed up against the Queensland coastline. You can see here just out to see Cape values approaching 12, 13, even 1,400 in a few spots. That's very prolific. A lot of instability in the atmosphere here. And that will bode very well for thunderstorms. So, this here is a storm environment and one of the most prolific storm environments I've seen in my decade of doing these weather forecasts here in the month of May for Queensland.

[00:09:00]This is quite significant indeed and will certainly work to get some thunderstorms off the ground. Now, that's a long update for Queensland. Now for New South Wales because this is where things get very interesting. Now we talked about this in previous forecast updates and I was a bit skeptical as to whether or not this low pressure system will actually become a significant rainfall concern for the New South Wales eastern seabboard specifically the Sydney area and for locations just north through Gossford and Newcastle. Right now I'm now leaning on this side of this could actually be quite prolific and this could translate to some significant flooding especially through northeastern New South Wales but right down the eastern seabboard to about Sydney. And the reason behind this is this low pressure system not only remains quite slow moving, you can see it here very tracking very slowly towards Coffs Harour uh on Thursday, but by Thursday night into Friday when it gets itself offshore, it remains again quasi stationary. It doesn't want to budge here adjacent to the New South Wales coastline. And it holds itself in position right through Friday only beginning to push away from the coastline on Saturday. But even then it remains quite close and quite intense.

[00:09:56]Far stronger than the one that we saw late last week here into the Tasman Sea as it begins marching off towards New Zealand come later into the week and then in towards the weekend. But this is going to be quite a prolific area of low pressure. Not only is it quite strong, but it is going to be jammed up against the coastline for a prolonged period of time. And for a prolonged period of time, we're going to have the winds coming in from a direction that will be favorable for rainfall here across the northeast New South Wales coast and then into portions of the central coast as well, particularly north of Sydney. And you can see that here quite clearly. a sustained period of moderate to heavy rainfall as indicated by those oranges and red shadings here just to the south of the low pressure system right through Thursday afternoon and into Thursday evening and then through Friday morning and into early Friday afternoon with rainfall finally beginning to pull away come Saturday morning. Now the ECMWF is now beginning to call for some pretty significant rainfall accumulation numbers here. This is 3-day falls from Thursday out to Saturday. You can see those rainfall accumulations easing out of Queensland. So I'll just include Queensland here for the fun of it. You can see Queensland, especially into the southern regions, getting some good falls there. But you can see now a concentrated swath of moderate to heavy rainfall expected to extend through this region here. I'm not sure why the picker isn't working today, but these numbers here, this purple shading is approaching 200 mm of rainfall. And keep in mind, this is a numerical forecast model. This doesn't uh include those intricate coastal uh patterns here in the mountainous regions particularly around the Barington tops towards north of Newcastle here where rainfall accumulations often far surpass what the numerical forecast models have to say.

[00:11:22]So we might be looking at some isolated falls here approaching 3 or even 350 mm of rainfall. And the GFS is certainly on board or has been on board in previous forecast runs with some significant falls along the New South Wales coastline as well as the icon forecast model calling for that very intense swathe here around the Newcastle area.

[00:11:38]The access also on board with that impressive tongue of rainfall through here. What you can see between these major forecast models is there are a couple of discrepancies right now still flopping and flipping around these forecast models as to who's going to see the heaviest rainfall and how much rainfall is going to be coming through.

[00:11:53]But you can bet a safe bet right now that locations north of Wulingong right up to the Queensland New South Wales border, this includes Sydney, Newcastle, Port McQuary, Coffs Harour and Lismore, will see at least 70 mm of rainfall.

[00:12:05]Most spots will see closer to 100 millimeters of rainfall. And this will mostly fall Thursday, Friday, and early on Saturday. So through a pretty short stint of time, there will now be a concentrated section of coastline most likely at this point in time around or just the north of Newcastle here, including the Barington tops that sees much higher rainfall accumulations.

[00:12:23]probably closer to 200 mm and a few spots that could get closer to 300 mm, particularly if this does get itself jammed up against the mountains. Now, that will translate to flooding, particularly with how saturated the New South Wales coastline is. I know everybody in northeastern New South Wales is familiar with how much rainfall has been coming through into this region lately. It has been a persistent story of southeasterly winds bringing showers and storms to the northeastern seabboard of New South Wales. And again, this rainfall here very much unwelcome at this point in time. And the fact that they're going to get even more of it through this rainfall event, not good news at all. These places are saturated.

[00:12:55]They can't even take 50 mm, let alone 350 mm. So, this prolific rainfall event here could translate to a flooding risk.

[00:13:02]Now, I've said it for Queensland, particularly into the southeastern portion of the state. You're now on a flood watch. You're on notice for flooding now for through Thursday morning. And that will extend into New South Wales as we get out towards Friday and into Saturday. There is a high likelihood of flooding developing in isolated spots at this point in time through most of northern and central New South Wales coastlines. That's quite a concern particularly with how wet these areas are right now. They can't necessarily cope with any more rainfall and this is expected to be quite a prolific area of low pressure. Not to mention the fact that we're also likely to see some somewhat significant wind gusts associated with this low pressure.

[00:13:33]The good news at least is it becomes a much stronger system and a much more prolific weather system here as it heads offshore. Again, I don't know why the weather picker isn't working, but gusts likely to be up to about 115 ks an hour further offshore. Coastal areas will be spared the worst bit. Again, that's because these winds will have that slight offshore kick from them coming out of the southwest. That means coastal areas will be a little bit more protected in nature, but there will still be exposed portions of coastline that do get 90k an hour gusts. And there will be that severe risk as we head out towards Friday night and into Saturday.

[00:14:02]Waves will get very big once again, particularly into the weekend as this low pressure system quickly deepens. You can see these pink shadings indicating waves greater than 5 m. Purple shadings here indicating waves greater than about 7 m in height. So we're definitely going to see some more prolific wave heights here. And it looks to be coming out of the south. So not overly favorable for swell. It's going to be coming along the coastline for example, but it will still be quite prolific and surfers. Again, another field day expected through New South Wales. This time targeting the Sydney area. So if you are in Sydney or based around Sydney, then there will be some good surf uh in those areas. should mostly ease and clear this weekend as this low pressure system moves down towards the south into the Tasman Sea.

[00:14:38]But yeah, our eastern seabboard is once again lining up for a significant outbreak of severe weather. First, the thunderstorms in Queensland followed by some rain flow into the Brisbane metro area associated with thunderstorms and then it'll be New South Wales turn as we head out towards Friday and Saturday.

[00:14:51]Significant severe weather events all unfolding here. And that is why we're going to be switching to twice daily updates. Now, if I can find something that changes today, I'll move to a twice daily update later today. If not, we're going to be running twice daily updates here. One in the morning, one in the afternoon, the afternoon one where we really nerd out on what's going on in the next 24 hours. So, make sure you do stay stick around for that and subscribe to the channel. You don't want to miss it. That's a feature that we do here when prolific severe weather outbreaks are expected to occur. Now, southwestern WA winter is coming. It's going to break. It's not going to break tomorrow night, even though we will get a taste of winter tomorrow night when a prolific storm front does move through. But the one coming through this weekend has me seriously considering making the drive down to Albany or Cape Luen and actually having a look. This is going to be a prolific outbreak of winter uh weather coming into southwestern WA. So, let's start things off. You can see that frontal system beginning to approach the southwestern Capes through tonight into tomorrow morning. We are likely to see some light rainfall extending across the far southern Capes later tonight. And a lot of cloud coverage expected to move through ahead of this frontal system from tonight into early tomorrow morning. Those northerly winds will continue to pick up through the Perth metro area through tomorrow. It will start off fine, but windy conditions expected to prevail. And then tomorrow night at about 5 or 6:00, the first touchings of this frontal system expected to arrive into the Perth metro area. Now, this one here is going to be quite a prolific one on the rainfall side of things. We have elevated convective available potential energy.

[00:16:08]Again, as we talked about for Queensland, good at enhancing thunderstorms, and the thunderstorms that do come through in this frontal system will be rain-based. So, they'll be enhanced once again. And some locally heavy falls are possible Wednesday night into early Thursday morning through the Perth metro area. We could be seeing rainfall accumulations approaching 15 mm through most of the suburbs and then into the hills up to about 30 or even 40 mm not off the cards right now depending on how heavy the rainfall is. There'll also be a belt of rainfall here coupling coupling up with some moisture coming in off the Indian Ocean through the uh central west and maybe even into the northern wheat belt as well. We'll also likely see some good shower and thunderstorm activity down into the southwest capes. There is some good storm relative helicity. I wouldn't be surprised if a water spout or two was cited Wednesday night and into early Thursday morning down around the southwestern Capes, too. Briefly fine conditions. We will still see some stormy weather on the on Thursday across the southern coast. And that that may include the Perth metro area, but conditions should fine up through Thursday and Friday into the Perth metro area. And then we begin to see those winds develop from the north once again through the southwest land divisions.

[00:17:05]And this will be the sign of the big one coming through. This frontal system that's going to begin arriving Saturday that will mainly arrive on Sunday is going to be significant. Again, a good storm front coming through here. The cold front associated with this one will pack some rainfall and a bit of a punch, but it's going to be the southerntherly blast that comes in on Sunday afternoon and evening behind the actual frontal system here that really packs a punch for the southwest land division. Now, right now, it does look like Perth is going to be located a little bit too far north to really see the major severe weather implications from this frontal system. But the southwest land division and the southern coast here, including Albany up to about Bustleton and Cape Naturalist could really get an absolute hiding from this weather system here.

[00:17:44]We've got wind gusts approaching 135 km an hour in this frontal system as it moves through late on Sunday and into early Monday morning. So, a woolly long weekend here for the southwest land divisions. If you're heading down south, I feel profusely sorry for you. This is not fun weather at all. Uh, I wouldn't be cancelling anything right now, but if you are in a caravan, I'd probably be be reconsidering maybe going a little bit further inland or at least putting yourself in a protected location because this is severe weather coming through.

[00:18:09]Not only will it be quite uncomfortable to spend this sort of weather in a caravan, but it's not going to be uh, you know, it might not even be safe if you're in a if you're in a very exposed location. I mean, we do have some serious wind gusts here. Again, weather picker not working, but up to 130 ks an hour for the southwest capes. That's going to be quite significant. Very much a prolific weather system coming through Sunday night and into early Monday morning. And you can see the low here 985 hector pascals. That is intense and right along the south coast here. So quite a significant one at that. And strong winds are expected to move right through the wheat belt. Some good rainfall expected out there as well. You can actually see rainfall accumulations from this frontal system here. Just through the long weekend and also including what we're going to be seeing on Wednesday as well. We might have a couple of spots here approaching 100 millimeters into the hills uh into the southern suburbs of Perth. falls between 10 to 25 mm expected out to the wheat belt getting heavier the further west you go in fact out towards the western peripheries of the wheat belt we might be looking at up to 50 mm of rainfall for example so some good falls some good wind some good rain coming through this is going to be a prolific start to winter here and definitely some significant severe weather conditions are expected to occur as a result that is a long forecast update we didn't even touch on the general weather outlook today so follow me on Facebook for the bigger details we're going to be really nerding out in these thunderstorms into the afternoon I just want to sit here and also say a massive thank you to all of the new viewers on the channel. I'm not sure why, but these videos have suddenly, you know, 4xed in uh reach, which is fantastic to see. I love seeing that these weather reports getting out to more and more people. It's great for the channel as well. Uh and I really am super grateful for it. Again, a reminder, our website launching this weekend. I can't wait to share with you what we've got. And again, that's going to be a fantastic, fantastic opportunity to get the best severe weather coverage that Australia has to offer. You'll also be supporting a small but growing Australian company run by me and only me. But that will do it for me today.

[00:19:49]Have a wonderful Tuesday today. Uh enjoy the se or the fine weather before the severe weather comes through. I'll catch you on the next storm.