A dangerous outbreak of severe thunderstorms is forecast for later on today across our eastern states. That could bring some hazardous weather to parts of Queensland and New South Wales through the next several hours. I'm Angus Hines, here at the Bureau of Meteorology. It is Saturday, the 1st of November. Let's get into the details straight away with our thunderstorm forecast for the rest of the day today.

Now, the colours show where thunderstorms are possible, and that includes a large part of the country. But for the high-end hazardous severe thunderstorms, we have to focus in on the east coast. Severe thunderstorms are possible through the yellow areas on this map, and they are likely through the red areas on this map. And I've put these icons up here because when we see severe thunderstorms a little bit later on this afternoon, they could bring a whole array of weather hazards, including heavy to intense rainfall that can bring flash flooding, damaging to destructive wind gusts, and large to giant-sized hail.

When it comes to the wind, there is even an outside chance that we could see a tornado or two touch down with the most intense, most severe thunderstorm cells later on today. In this map, I wanted to zoom in a little more to see some of the towns and cities which could be impacted by severe thunderstorms during Saturday afternoon and evening.

Starting in New South Wales, we're mostly looking at the high-risk area being up in the Northern Tablelands and across to the North West Slopes and Plains. That includes spots like Tamworth, up to Glen Innes and across to Moree. There is a chance that some of these severe storms could get out to the east coast as well, from areas around Port Macquarie up through Coffs Harbour, Grafton, Ballina, Lismore and Byron Bay.

Across the state border into Queensland, we actually see the red high-risk area out towards the coast here, and that means that impacts our highly populated coastal strip through Surfers Paradise, Gold Coast, the Brisbane metro area, the Sunshine Coast, Maleny, Noosa Heads, then inland up through the Burnett region, Kingaroy and Gympie, about as far north as Biloela and Rolleston, and as far west as Roma, including the Darling Downs, Toowoomba, Dalby, Warwick and other surrounding areas.

So there’s lots of places and, more importantly, lots of people that could be impacted by severe thunderstorms later on today. And if that happens, some of the impacts could get pretty serious. Those strong winds certainly enough to bring down branches, maybe enough to bring down entire trees. Those trees, of course, can fall onto cars, fall onto houses, and cause significant damage to property.

Heavy rain can lead to flash flooding. We can also see dangerous travel conditions, flooded roads and possible isolation of streets and locations if that heavy rain does close several roads. There’s going to be a lot of stress on the power network, particularly a chance for power outages. That combination of damaging wind and large hail can do that.

And speaking of hail, here’s a couple of the dozens of photos of giant hailstones that we saw yesterday with thunderstorms. We absolutely could see more large or giant hail today. Hail of 5 to 8 cm is absolutely possible with some of these larger thunderstorms and if that happens, then of course, those big hailstones can also cause significant damage to cars, to roofs, to skylights, to crops and gardens as well.

Basically anything outdoors under these giant falling hailstones. So that is what is happening today, I did also want to take a quick look at how we're shaping up for tomorrow, and I thought the best way to do that was with a bit of a comparison. So this is today’s rainfall map. We've talked about the risk of severe thunderstorms through this area and this area during Saturday afternoon from about mid-afternoon, 2 or 3 o’clock, through until after sunset.

These storms could continue into the night, and potentially, in a few areas, even into the early hours of Sunday morning. If we now look at Sunday, we're going to see another risk of some rain and storm activity, but we will also notice it’s a much smaller area hugging the coastline from about Rockhampton down to the far north of New South Wales.

So tomorrow, thunderstorms not be as extensive as they are today, and many places will not see the same risk. But that doesn’t mean there’s no risk at all. There is another chance for severe thunderstorms on Sunday. This time it’s mostly inland areas from Brisbane up to around about Bundaberg as being our highest-risk zone. So it is going to be a very active weekend when it comes to thunderstorms.

But today, Saturday, is the key day with the extensive, potentially severe outbreak and high-end hazardous weather. There will be several Severe Thunderstorm Warnings issued through both Queensland and New South Wales later on today, and they will be modified and updated as these storms develop and move through those areas.

So do stay up to date with all your warnings on the Bureau’s website and app. Thanks for watching. Have a safe day!