Weather News

Snow, fire, thunderstorms and dust storms all in one day

Ben Domensino, Thursday November 22, 2018 - 15:17 AEDT

The last 24 hours have had a bit of everything across Australia. From dust storms and heavy snow in the southeast, to thunderstorms across the nation's east and north, and total fire bans in WA.

A strong low pressure system and associated pool of cold air moved over southeastern Australia on Wednesday and Thursday. This system caused strong winds to flow over dry soil in western NSW, causing a large area of raised that swept across NSW, southern Queensland and northern Victoria. The dust storm was thickest in far western NSW on Wednesday afternoon and had thinned out noticeably when it reached the state's coastline on Thursday. However, there was still enough airborne dust to briefly turn the sky brown in Sydney.

While large areas of NSW and northern Victoria were being covered by dust on Thursday, it was a different story in the alps. A pool of cold air that originated from the Southern Ocean caused temperatures to drop low enough for snow in some areas on Thursday morning. There was enough snow to cover the ground at some of Australia's ski resorts, making it look more like early winter than the end of spring. More snow is expected to fall over the next couple of days as the cold air lingers over the mountains.

Further north, a low pressure trough sweeping over southeast Queensland on Thursday triggered intense thunderstorms. Severe storms warnings were issued in Brisbane and surrounding areas late in the morning as the line of storms passed through the region. Archerfield registered a wind gust of 83km/h during the storms and 16mm of rain fell in just half an hour at Amberley Airport.

Meanwhile, a mass of hot air combined with gusty winds to produce Severe to Catastrophic fire danger ratings to be forecast across a large area of Western Australia's inland on Thursday. This heat and the associated elevated fire danger ratings will shift towards the state's south on Friday.

Visit http://www.weatherzone.com.au/warnings.jsp for the latest warnings.

- Weatherzone

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