A large swathe of Australia faces a weekend of storms as huge bands of wet weather stretch right across the country.
The weather bureau said every state would be hit by summer rains, which could bring large hail, heavy rain and damaging winds.
But the most extreme outlook is in north Queensland where a massive amount of rain is expected to dump — more than has been seen in “years”.
Meteorologist Dean Narramore said parts of inland northern Queensland could see 100mm to 200mm of rain which had not been experienced since about 2019.
This includes remote towns such as Georgetown, Charters Towers, Richmond and Hughenden, with warnings of flash flooding.
Huge downpours are also expected along coastal areas from Mackay to Cairns, with up to 200mm to 400mm over the next five to seven days.
Weatherzone predicted the area could see an “extreme rainfall event” with as much as 700mm of rain.
Mr Narramore said every state could expect thunderstorms over the weekend along with some states like WA and SA experiencing a low-intensity heatwave.
Weatherzone warned that “a stormy weekend is upon us”.
“While we can’t say exactly when or where storms will strike, there is high potential for severe storms across large parts of the country – with the risk of large hail, heavy rain, and damaging winds.
“Three key ingredients for stormy weather are in place for this weekend: tropical moisture, low pressure troughs, and heat.
“Tropical moisture is streaming in across the north of the country with a monsoon trough developing near northern Queensland.
“That will feed storms across northern Australia, as well as persistent heavy showers over central QLD which we wrote about earlier this week.”
Heat will also play its part in forming storms as a low-intensity heatwave develops in five states plus the ACT.
Storms are expected to hit from late Saturday afternoon with a “vast sash” stretching diagonally across the country from WA’s Pilbara region to Gippsland in eastern Victoria.
However it’s good news for the southern capital cities which aren’t directly in the firing line.
“That doesn’t mean the storm chance is zero, but the potential is certainly higher in inland areas,” said Weatherzone.
