South Queensland has continued to be battered by wild weather with flash flooding, with hailstones and fallen trees smashing the state, as thousands of homes are still without power.
Storm warnings from the Bureau of Meteorology remain across much of the state except for parts of the far North Coast and southeast.
The warnings come after severe storms rolled through the state yesterday with torrential rain reaching around 90 millimetres in some areas.
Parts of the state’s inner west also received around 60 millimetres of rain in a short amount of time.
The strong winds and falling trees have resulted in hundreds of SES calls, and around 1500 homes are currently without power.
That’s just the beginning with storms expected to continue over the weekend.
A band of severe thunderstorms swept across south-east Queensland last night, 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.
South Queensland was battered by flash flooding, hailstones and fallen trees. (Nine)
“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.
Two angry red blobs showing the most severe of the thunderstorms moving across south-east Queensland on Friday night. (Bureau of Meteorology)The rain radar showing just how far inland the band of storms stretches in south-east Queensland. (Bureau of Meteorology)
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.
(Nine)
“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 today, with the potential for severe thunderstorms with heavy rainfall, damaging wind gusts, and large hail in south-east Queensland.
