Initially, it will be Victoria and Melbourne in the firing line over the next couple of hours, where thunderstorms could bring gusty and damaging winds. They may be strong enough to bring down big branches or even entire trees, so we could see something like this if those trees happen to fall across roads or even onto property and cause some damage.
After clearing Melbourne, storms are going to move into other capital cities, including a risk for Canberra, Sydney and Brisbane in the next few days. And where these storms bring the heaviest rain, we could see some flash flooding, particularly in areas which have had a very wet fortnight, meaning the ground is saturated. More rain today can’t soak into the landscape and can quickly turn to areas of flood.
Let’s take a look at the radar from this morning, focusing in on Victoria. This is where most of the action has been today. Initially, we had a broad band of patchy rain, which is now moving into Gippsland and the North-East Ranges with some moderate falls there. But out to the west of that, a much smaller band of some lightning-active thunderstorms, which have moved through parts of Melbourne already, as well as some other areas in southern and central Victoria.
And it’s this follow-up band of storms which could pack a punch through the next few hours. And that is why we’ve got this thunderstorm risk, Severe Thunderstorm risk, through parts of Victoria from Melbourne eastwards throughout the middle of the day today. So our main risk areas are Melbourne, parts of Gippsland, the North-Eastern Ranges and the north-central parts of Victoria as well.
For most of these areas, the primary threat will be the first half of this afternoon. That’s certainly the case in Melbourne itself. As we push forward into about 4 p.m. and beyond, we see those storms drift eastwards and northwards, maybe clearing out of the capital.
For Victoria today, the main risk of severe thunderstorms is those damaging wind gusts, but you’ll notice that Victoria is far from the only area in the Severe Thunderstorm risk, which is in the yellow area here on the map. We also see there’s a broad Severe Thunderstorm risk through inland parts of New South Wales, the southern interior of Queensland, and getting out towards the coast around Wollongong and the Illawarra.
Storms through these areas, including parts of ACT and Canberra, not only bring that same risk of damaging winds, but could bring areas of heavy rainfall and even some large hailstones, so expecting some very active storms here a little bit later on in the day. Mid to late afternoon for many of these areas, and potentially not until the evening hours by the time we’re looking at storms getting out towards the east coast.
Everything is slowly moving this way across the map, meaning these eastern areas will be the last to see it. Before we jump onto Sunday’s map, I want to show you one more warning that we’ve got out for the moment.
This is a Severe Weather Warning for damaging wind across the mountains of northern Victoria and southern New South Wales. We’ve seen wind gusts over 100 km/h already through this morning, and we could continue to see that through until this evening, when the winds will ease and this warning will be cancelled. But that’s a note for anyone heading to elevation today, very, very windy.
Now let’s take a look at tomorrow. And on Sunday, we’ll see a shift in focus of where our main areas of concern are, moving further north and further east towards the north of New South Wales, with clusters of heavy rain and storms also across the border into south-eastern parts of Queensland. So our Severe Thunderstorm map for Sunday looks very different to today.
We’ve still got a big yellow area on the map where we could see severe storms all the way from Newcastle up to about Gympie. Within that, we’ve got a smaller red area. This is where our severe thunderstorms are most likely. This includes parts of the Mid North Coast, Northern Rivers and even parts of the Tablelands and the Hunter Region in New South Wales.
Storms across the east coast tomorrow bring the risk of our full array of weather hazards: the big hailstones, the heavy rainfall and flash flooding, and the damaging winds that could damage property or trees. Within this red area, we even could see stronger winds than that. What we’d describe as destructive winds above 125 km/h, really, really powerful winds with storms in this area here, which could bring down big trees or damage property.
So if you do live through this area, tomorrow is definitely a day you’ll want to keep a watch on the radar to see if any big storms are headed your way, and keep a watch on any Severe Thunderstorm Warnings, which could get issued by our expert forecasting team here at the Bureau of Meteorology.
Let’s check out the start of next week, because I’ve got one more thing I want to mention before the end of this video. Won’t go into detail, but a low-pressure area developing near Adelaide late on Sunday, then drifting eastwards on Monday somewhere near the Victoria-New South Wales border, is going to begin next week with another wet and possibly stormy outbreak across Victoria and southern and eastern parts of New South Wales, maybe northern Tasmania as well.
At the moment, it doesn’t look as active as the weekend, but it could be a brief spell of follow-up rain and follow-up severe weather. So that’s one to watch out for in the slightly longer-term forecast.
Before that arrives, some very active days on Saturday and Sunday. Definitely stay up to date this weekend on the Bureau’s website or the BOM Weather app with your forecast and any of those warnings that get issued. And thanks for watching.
Video current: 11:00 am AEDT Saturday 31/10/26.
