Weather News

A thundery finish to winter for Queensland

Tristan Meyers, Sunday August 30, 2015 - 12:26 AEST

Severe thunderstorms sparked up just to the west of Lochington yesterday late morning, tearing through many parts of southeast Queensland into late last night.

In what looked akin to a late spring set-up, a moisture-laden trough was responsible for the thundery display, where over 30 000 strikes were detected within a 300 kilometre radius of Biloela.

The strength of the upper level winds gave the storm some teeth. Gusts of up to 95 km/h were recorded around Emerald as the storms sparked up.

Initially, a severe weather warning was issued at 2:30pm yesterday for the Central Highlands and Coalfields for damaging winds, hail and heavy rain. This was later downgraded at around 4pm to damaging winds and heavy rain.

Maroochydore had torrential rain in these storms, collecting a massive 25mm in just 10 minutes. Here, it was dry as a bone until 6:30pm. But by 7:30pm, Maroochydore had a whopping 50mm. At a grand total of 63mm, this single thunderstorm produced over 75% of Maroochydoreâ??s August average rainfall.

Further north, Thangool collected 39mm and Monto collected 38mm, their heaviest August rainfall in five years.

Although the risk of thunderstorms are still prevalent today in Queensland, they should be contained to eastern parts of the state. From tomorrow, a ridge of high pressure will take hold and the stormy conditions will subside.

- Weatherzone

© Weatherzone 2015

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