WeatherFanatics: Tropical Threat For Australia

Sunday, January 26, 2014

Tropical Threat For Australia

January 26,2014; 9:15PM,EST

As the summer months drag on over Australia with some very hot and dry weather around, the hot weather is also helping to bring the threat for a tropical system to northeastern Australia for the middle and end of this week.
Australia is situated near the hot waters of the South Pacific, and this is normally the breeding grounds for some stronger systems during the Northern Hemisphere's winter season. So far, none of these storms have affected Australia directly.
That looks to change over the next few days as a system is expected to develop over the Coral Sea, near the Vanuatu Islands. This will slowly push to the west and approach Australia for the middle and end of the week.
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With the water temperatures being quite warm over the Coral Sea and right to the coast of Queensland, this will have a chance to quickly develop if it can get enough clouds around the center.
This system will look to bring at least some locally heavy rainfall to the coastline north of Brisbane, and even some gusty winds as it moves onshore. However, if this does develop quickly, we could see some very strong winds, high waves and flooding near the coastline.

Satellite image from early Monday morning, local time
This could also bring some very heavy rainfall to parts of interior Queensland, which is currently seeing a drought. Parts of interior Queensland are near their lowest rainfall totals on record in the past 21 months, according to the Bureau of Meteorology. Over all of eastern Australia, only 60 percent of their long term average rainfall has fell.
Looking further out, this should be the only threat for the next week or more for Australia from the tropics.
Story by AccuWeather.com Meteorologist Alan Reppert

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