Weather News

Rain looms for eastern Australia

Ben Domensino, Friday March 22, 2019 - 14:02 AEDT

The remnants of Tropical Cyclone Trevor could bring heavy rain to large areas of drought-weary central and eastern Australia during the next week.

Cyclone Trevor is currently intensifying over the Gulf of Carpentaria and should make landfall over the Northern Territory on the weekend. This is likely to be a high impact coastal crossing for towns, communities and other infrastructure in the Territory's Carpentaria District.

After making landfall, Tropical Cyclone Trevor will weaken below cyclone strength as it travels inland towards central Australia on Sunday. Most forecast models indicate that Trevor's remnant low pressure system will then interact with a cold front crossing southeastern Australia on Monday. The combination of these two systems will cause rain and storms to spread across a large area of central and eastern Australia next week.

Image: Accumulated rainfall between now and the end of next week, according to the ECMWF-HRES model.

Based on current forecast models, some of the heaviest rain is likely to fall over eastern inland districts of the NT, Queensland's southwest and southern inland and northern inland NSW. These areas could receive 100-200mm of rain within 48 hours, which is enough to cause flash and riverine flooding.

The tropical moisture being dragged southwards by Trevor's remnants should also trigger showers and thunderstorms over a broader area of Queensland and NSW next week.

It's difficult to predict where and how much rain will fall from these showers and storms at this stage. However, many drought-affect regions of central and eastern Australia could see some wet weather next week from this system.

Unfortunately, much of NSW, southern Queensland and large part of the NT have received 100-400mm less rain than usual during the last 12 months.

Image: Rainfall anomalies for the 12-month period between March 2018 and February 2019. Source: BoM

While Trevor's rain could put a sizeable dent in these rainfall deficits, it probably won't break the drought for most places.

This will be a dynamic weather event and forecasts may change as the week unfolds. Be sure to keep up to date with the latest information and warnings.

- Weatherzone

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