Thunderstorms to impact much of Queensland and eastern New South Wales today, with severe thunderstorms bringing large hail, damaging winds and heavy rainfall for south-east Queensland and north-east New South Wales. We can see that on today's storm map, particularly in these yellow and red highlighted areas. If you live in these areas or know someone that does, the ingredients are coming together for widespread thunderstorms in these areas, and particularly in these red areas, severe thunderstorms with large hail damaging winds and heavy rainfall are likely, and that's enough to cause property damage to homes, properties and businesses, maybe impact crops and also cause power outages because of downed trees and power lines. But note the risk of showers and thunderstorms also extends well south along much of eastern New South Wales.

Now, as of this morning, it was quite sunny across many parts of New South Wales and Queensland this morning, and that's a key ingredient to get those showers and thunderstorms developing as the sunshine warms. That really humid, moist air in the low levels that causes it to rise, and that of developing the showers and thunderstorms across much of eastern Queensland and New South Wales this afternoon and this evening.

Now, looking at the radar over the last couple of hours, we're already seeing storms form offshore and we've seen a couple of showers and thunderstorms also developing through eastern New South Wales in the last few hours. And that's showing us that the energy in the atmosphere is ripe for much more development, particularly as we warm up into the early afternoon hours. And the heating of the day causes those clouds, showers and thunderstorms to form. So let's time that out and look at that in more detail.

So by the time we get towards the lunchtime hour now into early afternoon, you can see showers and thunderstorms developing ahead of the trough line through southern inland Queensland, much of north-eastern New South Wales, south-east Queensland and through eastern New South Wales as well. That does include places like Port Macquarie, Byron Bay, Lismore, Casino, Gold Coast, Brisbane, Sunshine Coast, inland towards Toowoomba, Saint George and all these areas in between have a risk of showers and thunderstorms today and then notice how it increases through north-east New South Wales and south-east Queensland as we get into that mid to late afternoon period and then the risk could move northwards into southern parts of the Wide Bay and Burnett district, towards Gympie and further north as we move into the evening and overnight hours, then clearing New South Wales and then eventually clearing Queensland in the early morning hours of Thursday.

But then we do it all again Thursday, and the focus shifts a little bit further northwards on Thursday as well. Mostly concentrated around south-east Queensland and far north-east New South Wales, we're likely to see another round of severe thunderstorms with large hail, damaging winds and heavy rainfall.

And we can look at that in more detail looking at Thursday's model run, you can see it's a lot drier and quieter through our inland areas now as dry air has moved in with the southwesterly winds and the focus really will be from Bundaberg down to around the Port Macquarie area, with the worst of those storms likely between around Byron Bay and Gympie. And some of those could be severe, as I mentioned as well. And then that too will head north into the evening and weaken by Thursday night.
So an active few days on the way through south-east Queensland and north-east New South Wales, and over the next few days we could see widespread falls of 25 to 50mm in this area, with isolated falls even higher than that, particularly with thunderstorms, but a lot less rainfall likely through inland areas.

So if you live in north-east New South Wales or south-east Queensland today, tomorrow and even into the weekend, showers and thunderstorms are going to impact many of us across these areas and severe thunderstorms are likely with large hail, damaging winds and heavy rainfall.

So to get the latest forecasts and warnings for your area via our website, app and social media, track the storms on radar and we'll see you here again next time.