A tropical low pressure system is heading towards the Queensland coast and likely to bring severe weather to multiple parts of the state between now and the end of the weekend. I'm Angus here at the Bureau. This is a severe weather update, and let's start off with some satellite imagery. We are focused on Tropical Low 29U, which is still several hundred kilometres to the north-east of Cairns.

If you've seen a lot of tropical weather systems, this one might look slightly unusual because the centre of the tropical low here, shown by the L, and then the surrounding rain cloud and thunderstorms shown here in the brightly coloured cloud are a bit disconnected. Typically we would see these two things well in alignment, but in this case we have the centre here, and then most of the convection and thunderstorms out to the west. That tells us this is not a symmetrical weather system, and that means we're only seeing a really low chance now of tropical cyclone development before this weather system reaches the coast.

So we are most likely going to see a tropical low pressure area reach Queensland in the coming few days, but we can still track that out with a tropical low pressure track as the system moves south-westwards towards the country, likely to arrive at some stage during probably the middle of the day or perhaps the afternoon on Friday. The likely arrival point for this tropical low pressure area is between Cairns and Townsville on the northern Queensland coast, then continuing to move south-westwards into central Queensland during the course of the weekend.

Even though we don't anticipate tropical cyclone development to occur, we are still likely to see some severe weather. In fact, we're already seeing it now, with heavy rain starting to build in this warning area here from Port Douglas northwards through Cooktown, pushing inland to Palmerville. This is the Severe Weather Warning which is currently in place for Thursday into Friday, where we anticipate further heavy rain to occur. Six-hour rainfall totals in this warning area could be in the 80 mm to 160 mm range, and 24-hour rainfall totals could be up to 350 mm. That's a lot of rain even for this part of the country, which has a very wet climate, and may lead to significant areas of flooding.

This is not the only part of Queensland that will see some wet weather impacts from this arrival of the tropical low pressure area, and in the coming days we anticipate these warnings could move and affect different parts of the state. Let's break it down day by day.

So today, Thursday, this weather system gets closer. The heaviest falls are north of Cairns, up around the Cooktown area. That is of course where our Severe Weather Warning is located for now. We will likely see some showers and storms further down the coast, potentially as far as Mackay, without seeing those significant rainfall accumulations.

That will change on Friday as this weather system makes its arrival somewhere along the Queensland coast. A particular area of focus on Friday will become the southern flank of this low pressure area. That means the coast from Townsville down to Mackay will be an area to watch. Notice how the winds, which are wrapping around the system, will be driving in from the north directly onto this stretch of coastline, pushing rain and thunderstorms onto this area through the Herbert and Lower Burdekin, the Central Coast, including around the Whitsundays and Hamilton Island, could get very wet there on Friday, and that will be a focus for severe weather.

Into the weekend then, this tropical low pressure area continues to plunge into central Queensland, and that is going to expand the area of impact across most northern and eastern parts of the state. Heavy falls could continue over North Queensland, but may also stretch down through the Central Coast, Capricornia and into the Wide Bay, here around Bundaberg and Hervey Bay, and potentially get as far south as south-east Queensland during the course of the weekend.

These impacts will be widespread. In particular will be those impacts coming from the rain, flash and riverine flooding could play a very serious part in the weather over the next three to four days in Queensland. And of course, the rain which is arriving, is arriving onto already wet and flooded areas in some parts of the state.

There will be some strong winds, particularly in the next couple of days as that system approaches and crosses the coast, which may lead to tree, property damage or powerlines and power outages. And we could certainly see some road closures due to that combination of wet and windy weather.

In terms of how much rain we could see, we could really get some big rainfall totals initially up here north of Cairns. We could be looking at up to about 350 mm there, and then we see the heavier falls just gradually sliding southwards down the coast, with the chance for triple figures, 100 mm plus, through parts of the Central Coast, Capricornia possibly getting all the way down to Brisbane later on in the weekend.

There is definitely some uncertainty about how much rain could fall across the south-east of the state. So if you do live in Brisbane or anywhere else in south-east Queensland over the coming days, definitely keep track of your forecast, especially for that potential rain on Sunday.

Finally, just a glimpse, a snapshot of the flood situation occurring across Queensland at the moment. Ongoing flooding is occurring over central and western parts of the state, with multiple rivers still experiencing major flooding based on recent rainfall. There is some minor flooding in other parts of the state, but the darker blue here is our Flood Watch, and that is where we could see new or renewed flooding in the coming days based on that forecast for heavy rainfall in northern and eventually central parts of Queensland.

This is a dynamic situation. We've already seen changes to the forecast and we may see further changes as we continue to learn more about 29U and get more confidence about its track and potential weather impacts. So do stay up to date with your warnings and your forecasts on the Bureau's website or app. Thanks so much for watching and stay safe.