Daily London
A large chunk of Queensland has been told to brace for a potentially wild weekend of weather.
A band of severe thunderstorms swept across south-east Queensland tonight and the Bureau of Meteorology warned it was just the beginning.
Friday’s storms first struck the Darling Downs, west of Brisbane, in the afternoon and slowly tracked towards the Gold Coast.
“We’ve really copped it down here on the Gold Coast,” 9News Queensland weather expert Luke Bradnam said at 6pm (7pm AEDT).
“Right now it is the city and the northern suburbs seeing the fiercest part of this storm.”
The storms were tracking north-east towards the Sunshine Coast.
Some of the biggest rainfall was at Mitchelton, in Brisbane’s north, where 48 millimetres fell in just 30 minutes to 6.20pm, and at Wallumbilla, more than 400 kilometres west of Brisbane, where 41 millimetres fell at almost the same time.
The BoM said Clontarf, in Moreton Bay, copped hail up to 4 centimetres just after 6pm.
Wind gusts of 91km/h were recorded at Nambour on the Sunshine Coast at 8.31pm.
The storms were tracking towards the ocean but still threatened big downpours and damaging conditions, the BoM said.
“Severe thunderstorms are likely to produce heavy rainfall that may lead to flash flooding and damaging winds in the warning area over the next several hours,” it said.
And the outlook for the weekend does not get much better.
The bureau has warned of scattered showers and thunderstorms across the state, with the potential for severe thunderstorms with heavy rainfall, damaging wind gusts, and large hail in south-east Queensland.
