WeatherzoneEastern Australia has been hit by a much-needed rain bomb amid the country’s relentless bushfire crisis.
Australia has been battered by wildfires since September last year, taking the lives of at least 28 people and wiping out more than a billion animals. It’s also estimated that 10 million hectares (100,000 sq km) of land across the entirety of Australia has turned to ash in the bushfires.
The east of the country has now been offered a long-awaited reprieve, as thunderstorms and a huge ‘rain bomb’ soak the region. However, high-speed winds have also arrived with storm, causing damage to a number of homes.
Check out the local news report following the extreme weather below:
On Wednesday afternoon, January 15, storms arrived in Melbourne before sweeping into Sydney the next day – the suburb of St Albans experienced a month’s worth of rain in just half an hour, MailOnline reports.
The rain’s not stopping there either, as a second weather system is forecast to hit Victoria, South Australia and western New South Wales from Monday, January 20. It’s a double-edged sword, however – while it’ll bring crucial precipitation to the regions, there’s also a possibility of supercell storms.
Weatherzone has released a number of maps capturing the full extent of the weather, such as the one below:
WeatherzoneTom Saunders, a Sky News Weather chief meteorologist, said:
By Monday, a cut-off low pressure system will bring widespread heavy rain. We could see widespread severe weather with damaging wind gusts, further flash flooding and we could even see supercell storms. So there’s going to be some big rain.
A supercell storm is defined as ‘a thunderstorm with a deep rotating updraft (mesocyclone)’ and is ‘the most dangerous because of the extreme weather generated’, according to the University of Illinois.
Here’s an example of a supercell storm, as pictured in Germany in 2019:
PA ImagesWhile NSW – a region particularly afflicted by the bushfire crisis – has been assisted by some heavy showers in recent days, there are still around 90 fires burning across the region.
Explaining the surging weather pattern further, Weatherzone meteorologist Ben Domensino said:
While this type of weather pattern is not unusual for this time of year, it’s the first widespread rain and storm event we’ve seen in eastern Australia so far this season. Showers and storms will start to increase over Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria from Wednesday and continue to effect parts of eastern Australia each day, until at least early each next week.
Eden Hills Country Fire Service/FacebookOver the next four days, the Bureau of Meteorology estimates NSW will be showered with between 30 and 80mm of rainfall. NSW Rural Fire Service Inspector Ben Shepherd said: ‘It’s the most positive forecast the RFS has had in months and will give crews a chance to regroup and work on containment lines.’
You can donate to the Australian Red Cross here. Alternatively, you can donate to the NSW Rural Fire Service here, or the Queensland Fire Service here. You can also donate to the WWF Australia Bushfire Emergency fund here.
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After graduating from Glasgow Caledonian University with an NCTJ and BCTJ-accredited Multimedia Journalism degree, Cameron ventured into the world of print journalism at The National, while also working as a freelance film journalist on the side, becoming an accredited Rotten Tomatoes critic in the process. He’s now left his Scottish homelands and took up residence at UNILAD as a journalist.