Scorching hot temperatures are searing through the southern states elevating bushfire danger, "Laurence" has intensified into a Cat 3 Severe Tropical Cyclone (TC) and severe storms are pounding northeast NSW and southeast QLD- it's all happening!
TC "Laurence" strengthened in to a severe Cat 3 storm today and continues to skirt WA's Kimberley coast moving in a south- westerly direction. Very destructive wind gusts to 185kmh are being experienced near the coast just south of Troughton Island and may extend as far as Mitchell Plateau later today.
The structure of a TC is actually pretty fascinating. The centre or "eye" is the calmest part of a TC, while the area surrounding the eye or "eyewall" is where you not only get the strongest winds but the deepest cumulonimbus storm clouds which actually produce the heaviest rain. It's really important to know this about a TC because a period of calm weather doesn't necessarily mean the TC has moved on. Rather, the TC eye could be passing straight overhead, with destructive weather just around the corner.
TC's don't often pass directly over a weather station to capture the wind change between the calm "eye" and destructive "eyewall" but this morning "Laurence" made an exception by hurling straight over WA's Troughton Island. I watched the observations closely this morning and it was amazing to see the winds gradually decrease from S with gusts of 187kmh at 8.00am, to E with gusts of 24kmh at 9.00am when the "eye" passed across, to then intensify back to destructive stage with ENE with 148kmh an hour after that. Amazing stuff.
It has also been steaming in Eucla today which got 45.4 degrees today- a massive 20 degrees above the December average! South Australians have also been sweating it out with Adelaide reaching 38 degrees today. But it's only going to get hotter tomorrow across the south eastern states. Melbourne and Adelaide are looking down the barrel of a 39 degree day and even Hobart is stepping up to the hot plate with an unseasonally hot forecast of 32 degrees- that's 12 degrees above the December average. A change late Wednesday/ Thursday will cool things down dramatically but ahead of it winds will strengthen. This has prompted fire weather warnings in SA, VIC, TAS and NSW for Wednesday.
Yesterday, severe storms lashed northeast NSW with hail and flash flooding. Kempsey picked up 95mm and widespread hail turned Glenn Innes into what looked like a Winter Wonderland. This afternoon severe storms are once again grumbling across the Northern Tablelands and QLD's southeast. Flash flooding, damaging winds and large hailstones are all possible. At The Weather Channel, we often to refer to this region as "thunderstorm alley" because of the frequency and intensity of summer storms in this region.
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