Australia: This Storm Keeps Getting Bigger...

[00:00:00][music] >> G'day guys, it's Josh here from Cyclones Oz and this is your daily Australian weather forecast update for Friday the 19th of June, 2026. It's almost the weekend, just today to get through. And again, we've got a large weather system that's dominating the weather scene, but this one here is not going to stick around for much longer. We are expecting rainfall to extend through portions of New South Wales and Queensland with Brisbane in the crosshairs for some potential moderate falls this weekend.

[00:00:23]But after that, we're looking at a very calm and stable picture with the implications of El Nino expected to extend across Australia, at least in a small capacity throughout a brief period at least towards the end of June. Now, if you are brand new to my channel, please do consider subscribing and leave a like on the video while straight up.

[00:00:37]But let's get stuck straight into the current details right now with a look at the satellite picture with the temperature observations overlaid for a change this morning. So, you can see our area of low pressure generating these thunderstorms across southeastern Australia is situated here, just towards the south of Victoria and South Australia. We're beginning to see that trough here behind the low pressure system brush up into SA and that's going to bring a cold, showery, and very wintry day here across the southern Australian coastline. Then we've got rainfall here in this big rain band that's beginning to extend further towards the east and this is going to deliver some moderate rainfall through western Queensland, portions of northern New South Wales, whilst it slowly marches off towards Brisbane and northeastern New South Wales in the next 24 to 36 hours. And come later this weekend, particularly Saturday night into Sunday, we could be looking at a band of moderate rainfall potential in or around the Brisbane metro area. We'll talk about that one in just a hot sec.

[00:01:27]Rainfall is patchy but still present elsewhere. We are expecting light falls to extend right up to the Great Dividing Range but not over it. So, the eastern seaboard today and tomorrow will remain dry. Now, on the Queensland side of things, I'll start off with you guys first. You can see this band of rainfall here beginning to push in towards western Queensland at this point in time. There are a few areas of more moderate rainfall, particularly around Mount Isa, we're beginning to see some halfway decent rainfall accumulations out here. A few spots are getting close to 20 mm or so, which for this time of the year is quite unusually heavy. Then we've got patchy light rainfall extending down through Longreach right down to about Charleville and Augathella. And this rainfall is expected to be persistent and consistent throughout the course of today. So, we're looking at this being a pretty solid band of light moderate rainfall pushing through into these areas. It will then ease off later tonight. Now, the rainfall really does run out of steam as it moves in towards Central Queensland. So, places around the Warrego and the Maranoa, also Roma, and anywhere basically towards the east of Charleville will be hard pushed to pick up any rainfall at all. There will be a few spots getting close mm, but we're generally looking at some light drizzly stuff out in this area accompanied with some cloudy conditions developing later this afternoon and into tonight. The northerlies are going to pick up later today for the Brisbane area and through much of the Southeast Queensland coastline. Now, this is going to enhance a bit of a coastal moisture flow here.

[00:02:41]So, we're beginning to see moisture surge in along the surface, but more importantly into the mid-levels above the coast here through Southeastern Queensland. And that will meet up here with a trough that's beginning to develop and strengthen out here tonight and into tomorrow morning. This is very important because we're now beginning to get that sort of squash zone here where we've got enough forcing along the surface and enough moisture into the mid-levels to actually generate that swathe of moderate to even locally heavy rainfall accumulations here through pockets of Southeastern Queensland, which is expected to take hold sometime tomorrow afternoon and into tomorrow evening, but really shine its light through on Sunday. And you can see that here on the forecast models. We do have that very slow-moving and rather persistent band of rainfall on Sunday developing out here inland from the Southeast Queensland coastline. Now, there are a few discrepancies between the forecast models at this point in time. One of them is intensity, timing, and location. All three of them are intensity, timing, and location, which is quite difficult when you're trying to make an accurate, reliable, and more importantly useful forecast for you guys in this area. Now, the EC has been pretty consistent with a belt of rainfall out here just inland from Southeastern Queensland, not located over Brisbane, but around some of the Brisbane suburbs, and particularly out into the Burnett and the Wide Bay area, and around locations such as Gympie, Kingaroy, and into the Wivenhoe Outlook.

[00:03:55]The GFS is calling for rainfall to be in the exact same place, but naturally a little bit lighter. The GFS tends to underestimate on the rainfall accumulation side of things into the short range. The ICON is calling for a pretty similar, but slightly undercooked version of the ECMWF, and the ACCESS, which is pretty poor in terms of placement, but pretty good in terms of intensity, is calling for rainfall to be of a similar intensity out here into the Pacific Ocean. So, just offshore from southeastern Queensland. Throwing all of this together, it does paint a rather pretty picture for rainfall through here into portions of the Wide Bay Burnett, maybe even into the Sunshine Coast Hinterland. And I would like to say that this area through here that I've just highlighted has some decent potential on Sunday to pick up falls for around 25 to 50 mm. Again, a lot of things are contingent on how slow-moving the showers and thunderstorms are associated with this rain band, and you're really going to be in, you know, the pick of the locations to see more than 50 mm of rainfall. It's going to be quite a broad coverage of rainfall, but for that heaviest rainfall accumulations, we're talking 25 to 50 mm, or 50 mm plus, you've got to be in the right spot at the right time. It's not going to be everywhere at this point in time. For Brisbane, I'd definitely be expecting a few drops of rainfall to move through, particularly into Sunday morning and early Sunday afternoon as this trough kind of reaches its maximum intensity here through the Brisbane metro area and into the Gold Coast Hinterland. Showers will continue through Sunday evening and into early Monday morning, but they will ease off pretty quickly from the west here on Monday afternoon. But for Brisbane, I'd say pretty much a sure fire 5 to 10 mm, but in terms of anything getting between that 10 to 50 mm threshold right now, a lot of things are going to have to go right for Brisbane to see that sort of rainfall, but it does look possible at this point in time that Brisbane will see at least a few showers coming in from this weather system. So, the memo right now is there is a bit of heavy rainfall potential somewhere in southeastern Queensland. My zone here is into the Burnett region here, just outside of the Sunshine Coast Hinterland. So, places like Gayndah, Gympie, for example, or Gayndah, rather, Gympie, Kingaroy, for example. These areas here north of the Wivenhoe Outlook are in the box seat to see that rainfall potential. But as to exactly where or when this rainfall is going to arrive plus exactly how much is coming through, bit uncertain right now. We can say with a high degree of certainty that pretty much everywhere south of this line here should see about 5 mm and this will also include portions of northeastern New South Wales. It also includes parts of the Capricorn coast into the Burnett region as well as the Brisbane and Gold Coast city areas and then it like I said through portions of New South Wales particularly into the northeast and then for locations west of the Great Dividing Range. Like I said at the start of the video the eastern seaboard it looks to be quite dry from this weather event here. So let's not get our hopes up for rainfall and that is reflected quite solidly at least on the forecast modeling here that good tongue of rainfall protruding out into this area drier on the eastern seaboard and we've also got that rainfall potential here into southeastern Queensland. So good news for people that are looking for a little bit of rainfall in these areas there should be some coming through. You can see the Brisbane area expecting 10 mm. We have over complicated that without actually needing to take a look at a lot of the details here but such as the thermodynamics and kinematics behind this weather event we've really over complicated that so I do apologize for taking a lot of your time. I promise tomorrow's explanation of it will just be you know simpler going over the facts and going over the details and the changes from today's forecast but I thought that we might as well have a look at this because it looks like it's going to be the last hurrah for rainfall here before some finer weather begins to develop. And just briefly back in time here across southeastern Australia I'll lump all of you guys in one video. Like I said behind the low pressure system which is tracking off towards the southeast pretty quickly now. So this will include most of Tassie as well as most of the southern SA coastline. We are going to be looking at a rather cold day today as the southerlies and southwesterlies begin to push up into both states. Now for South Australia this means persistent and rather consistent shower activity. It's going to be all through the state's coastline here right up to the Nullarbor Plain. We are going to be looking at some strong wind gusts associated with this frontal or second frontal system as well as some very cold temperatures. So rug up today.

[00:07:41]Rainy, miserable, cloudy for the western and northern coasts of Tassie. Hobart should be a little bit clearer and calmer, but we are still looking at a couple of showers coming through into those regions later today. And you can see Victoria conditions are expected to clear up throughout the course of today.

[00:07:53]However, some showers are still expected to extend through most of the state this afternoon before the weather contracts down to the coastline later tonight and through tomorrow conditions are expected to clear off and begin to ease out of the state. Still a few bits of rainfall here around the Gippsland coastline. And thanks to a trough that's expected to establish itself in this region here through Saturday and into Sunday. We might actually be looking at some halfway decent rainfall accumulations into the Gippsland region, which would be very welcome indeed. They do need those falls in those areas. Now, if the temperatures were much colder, we'd be looking at blizzard conditions here through the New South Wales and Victorian high country. It's been blowing really hard at Thredbo overnight. And you know, there's been a bit of rainfall around, but it's just not cold enough to snowfall. And we've discussed this in previous forecast updates. As this system was coming through, we knew it'd be a bit of a long shot as to whether or not this was going to be associated with a cold and moist air mass, which is needed to generate snow, and it just isn't. The cold and moist air mass is back here. And right now, the you know, where the actual precipitation is falling is through here. So, not healthy for snowfall whatsoever. And we're not expecting significant snowfall at all through Thredbo or any of the other ski resorts through New South Wales or Victoria. The chance of snow does become a bit of a possibility as we move out and towards Saturday and into Sunday here through Thredbo and some of the other ski resorts in the region. But it's, you know, two, three, maybe five centimeters tops. And it's going to fall above about 1,800 m. So, don't get excited for it.

[00:09:13]It's not significant at this point in time.

[00:09:17]Um in terms of uh severe weather threat, it is just confined to the mountains or the mountainous regions. That's where the strong wind gusts are. But like I said, we will be seeing some stronger wind gusts, particularly when that southerly change moves through Saturday and into Sunday here through the Gippsland region. And then a small but rather powerful, I guess for the hectopascal reading here. You know, we've got a bit of forcing against the coastline. We do have a rather strong storm here that's expected to take hold here into the Tasman Sea as we move out to about Monday. But this one here very not impactful at all, I should say here for the New South Wales or Victorian coastline. It will still be quite gusty and swirly, and that southerly change will generate some colder temperatures here through the New South Wales eastern seaboard. But overall, for all intents and purposes, not a very strong system at this point in time, particularly when taking a look at central pressure of 1,020 hPa.

[00:10:02]That's borderline high pressure, not low pressure. So, interesting, interesting, interesting, but you can see here a calm, collected, and pretty tame picture across southeastern Australia at this point in time. And that is expected to continue right out until about the end of June. We do have some signals of frontal activity as we push out to the last couple of days of June, but yeah, it really doesn't look like too much at this point in time. Now, as we've been talked about in great detail in recent forecast updates, the end of June, it is a challenging forecast, that's for sure.

[00:10:31]We've finally got some new model information as to what we're going to be seeing. High pressure looks to be the dominant force right through next week.

[00:10:37]So, we can pretty much write off any chances of severe weather or rainfall occurring until we head out to about the 27th or the 28th. Now, that's not ideal.

[00:10:45]That means that the forecast has been pushed back, and that's a sign of forecast model uncertainty, which not only makes this forecast a very difficult and challenging one, and one that you probably want to be taken with a sizable pinch of salt, but it also means that the chance of some respectable rainfall accumulations across the eastern seaboard in the time when we are going to be looking into a bit of a drier period here, particularly for inland locations, does become a whole lot more unlikely. That being said though, major forecast models are still initializing a large and very rainy system here moving into the eastern seaboard. This is obviously overbaked in a worst-case scenario as per what the ECMWF is suggesting right now. But this system here does look like it would generate a period of time of, you know, above-average rainfall accumulations or healthy rainfall accumulations here across our eastern seaboard. The good news is the GFS is beginning to jump on board in terms of timing, location, and intensity of rainfall. It's still a pretty different system, but you can still see that trough here running down the New South Wales and Queensland interior. Uh same thing as what the ECMWF is expecting as well, that trough here running down the Queensland New South Wales interior, generating that area of rainfall that if it does tap into some tropical moisture, we would be looking at some healthy rainfall accumulations. So, one thing to note right now is we're beginning to see that forecast model can congruency line up, which is a good sign for the forecast. It means that it is now likely that something is brewing around this time period. But in terms of exactly where, when, and how bad, it is just really difficult to tell right now.

[00:12:07]My best guess and my best guidance right now is expect some rainfall as we move in towards next weekend, so the 27th and the 28th of June at this point in time.

[00:12:15]But take it with a sizable pinch of salt because at this point in time with the amount of forecast model uncertainty that we've got right now, two different scenarios from the major forecast models still in a similar location, but from different storm events, it is a difficult forecast to say the least. So, rainfall becomes a possibility towards the last couple of days of June and into the first couple of days of July, but at this point in time, it really is anyone's guess as to where and when this rainfall is going to fall and how much of it is going to occur. So, it is a classic just check back in in a few days and see what's actually come of it. At this point in time, a lot of forecast model uncertainty, really difficult to give an accurate picture as to what's expected to occur.

[00:12:53]It also looks like some hokey pokey storms are going to occur across southeastern Australia as we move into towards the dying days of June and into the first days of July, but again, we're looking very long range here, so we might as well just, you know, throw some darts at a dartboard and see what sticks. As with this sort of long range forecasting 10 plus days, it really is throwing some darts at a dartboard and hoping that you do get a bull's-eye.

[00:13:14]It really is hit and hope forecasting.

[00:13:17]Southwestern WA, we have a calmer, clear, and frankly freezing picture across the southwest this morning. You can see here a bit of upper level cloud beginning to extend across the southwestern land divisions, but it is, apart from that a very cold start here across the interior through the wheat belt. A big frost day coming through today.

[00:13:32]Uh it's good that not much has germinated right now, but if this was occurring, you know, towards August or September, this would be quite a concern with how cold it has been over the last couple of days here across the southwest. And it is all thanks to this high pressure system, a pretty dominant force right now through uh today and into tomorrow. You can see as that pushes off towards the east though, we are expecting a little bit of rainfall to begin to brush up against our southwestern capes through Sunday. Now, this frontal system here is going to be very weak in nature, but it is going to have the uh and enough forcing and a little bit of instability associated with it, which means come this weekend, we might actually be looking at some halfway decent rainfall accumulations through the southwestern capes uh around places like Augusta across to Albany.

[00:14:11]Halfway decent means between 5 and 20 mm. And again, it is contingent on whether or not instability actually does verify here. It looks like a few showers could make it up into the Perth metro area through Monday. It all in all looks like a pretty glum end to the weekend and glum start next week. But, then high pressure is expected to redevelop this one a little bit stronger. And you can see here a fine, calm, and collected picture is expected to extend through what's left of next week until about the 25th of June when a storm system is expected to move into southwestern WA.

[00:14:38]Now, there's a few things that are beginning to become quite clear from this weather system here. Whilst it is still to the, you know, medium range side of things, which means the details are still not ironed out completely. And a few things are going to continue to chop and change with the forecast models. We can say with a high degree of certainty that we are expecting a tall and likely severe cold front to approach the southwestern WA coastline. It looks like there'll be some strong winds associated with it, maybe a little bit of tropical moisture. So, this one here definitely does scream out to be more of a rain making weather system as opposed to a wind making weather system across the southwestern WA uh region. And classic case of bosses weather, you can see it here moving in as we move out towards the weekend. So, a pretty glum and messy picture expected towards the weekend. It also looks like a classic winter system, so cold and showery conditions expected behind it. Uh particularly through Friday and then Saturday and then that westerly flow continues. But, in terms of the details as to how strong the winds are going to get, how much rainfall is expected to fall here, anyone's guess at this point in time. But, we can say with now with a high degree of certainty a tall, potentially severe warned cold front is expected to develop and move into the southwestern WA region, including the Perth metro area, and it could actually impact as far north as the central west Gascoyne and Murchison coastlines. So, bit of an interesting time as we move out towards the end of the month.

[00:15:51]Definitely, as I've been saying for the last couple of days now, could be a stormy end to June. That though will do it for today's weather forecast update.

[00:15:58]Of course, if you have enjoyed it then please do consider leaving a like and also subscribe to the channel. It's the best way to support the page here. Uh and as well as you have if you haven't already then make sure you do go on check out the frontline of cyclonewatch.com.au/subscribe.

[00:16:10]There will be some emails going out today. We're working on adding some content for the subscriber section as well. So, get in right now before the prices climb ahead of severe thunderstorm season. But, that's going to do it for today. Have a wonderful uh end of the week, a wonderful Friday.

[00:16:23]I'll catch you on the next storm.

[00:16:24]Goodbye.