Extreme to catastrophic fire dangers are forecast for much of eastern and south-eastern Australia today, alongside damaging winds and potentially severe thunderstorms. Let me take you through some of the details now. Starting with our fire danger ratings for today, Wednesday, we can see elevated fire dangers across many parts of the south-east, including parts of South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales. It's really New South Wales that we want to focus on today, however, as that's where we're expecting widespread extreme to catastrophic fire danger ratings.

Now, the extreme fire danger ratings are forecast for many areas, including the greater Sydney area, the greater Hunter, the Illawarra, Shoalhaven and the Riverina. We are forecasting catastrophic fire danger ratings for the lower central west plains, including areas around Dubbo. Now, what this is telling us today is that the weather conditions are making any fire related activities inadvisable. Any fires that get started in the landscape are likely to spread quickly and act erratically, likely to get out of control as well. It's because of this that the RFS have issued total fire bans for all of these areas. If you check in with your local emergency services, you can find more information about what you are and are not allowed to do under these total fire bans.

In addition to the fire weather concerns today, we do also have a risk of damaging winds, particularly focused through the south-east of New South Wales. A severe weather warning for damaging wind gusts is in place for some of those south-eastern areas, including the central and southern ranges, much of the Illawarra, Shoalhaven, the entirety of the ACT and the Canberra region there. Now, we're likely to see windy conditions across much of the south-east today, including New South Wales and even Victoria, but it's this warning area that is most likely to see those damaging gusts today, easing back later on Wednesday. The damaging gusts will be strong enough to bring down trees or tree limbs, even power lines.

Taking a broader look at the winds now, we can see that they're wrapping strongly around a couple of low pressure troughs that are moving across the south-east today. So those windy conditions, as I mentioned, not just across New South Wales, but across parts of Victoria as well, even as far south as Tasmania and as far west as South Australia. However, we see a bit of a range in our temperatures across the south-east, and it's the very warm, dry conditions across New South Wales that are really helping to drive those extreme to catastrophic fire dangers there. As you can see, further south-east, we're looking at cool to mild conditions, temperatures in the high teens to low 20s. But across much of eastern and northern New South Wales, temperatures are likely to reach the mid to high 30s at least today, if not the low 40s in the north.

Now, this low pressure trough you see here moving across New South Wales at around 4:00 pm today is already making its way across Victoria. Looking at our radar imagery from the last few hours, we can see showers and storms streaming ahead of that trough, impacting Victoria and northern parts of Tasmania in particular, although we are also seeing storms kicking off across New South Wales already. This is really paving the way for the storm forecast for the rest of today as well. Let's take a quick look at that now.

Looking at our storm forecast for today, the green areas show us that storms are possible across much of northern and eastern New South Wales, much of central and eastern Victoria, even parts of Tasmania included there. The yellow and red areas show us where severe storms are possible. That includes parts of Victoria and north-eastern parts of New South Wales, pushing as far south as the Sydney area. Now, the storms are likely to bring damaging winds to parts of Victoria, but they could also bring heavy rainfall and large hail to parts of New South Wales. In fact, we may even see some high-end storm impacts, giant hail and destructive wind gusts today.

We're going to issue a separate severe weather update video around the thunderstorm forecast for today that will cover that off in a little bit more detail, so be sure to keep an eye out for that other video. In the meantime, recapping some of the key hazards we're looking at today: in areas of elevated fire dangers, particularly through New South Wales, there is an increased risk of bush fires and grass fires. Be aware of what you're doing, particularly outside today, and be sensible about what you're doing too. Where we're seeing strong winds and potentially severe thunderstorms, we could see damage to property, cars and vegetation. We may also see further power outages and disruptions to travel and transport through the day today.

Across today, it is essential to stay on top of the latest warnings and forecasts via the Bureau's website, the BOM Weather app and via our social media. Stay safe, and we'll catch you next time.