4 days ago
Winter arrives with cold rainy weather in Queensland
Queenslanders are waking up to wintry conditions as temperatures in parts of the Granite Belt in the state's south-west drop below 10 degrees Celsius.
The temperature in Applethorpe went as low as 6C overnight and the mercury dipped below 10C in Goondiwindi, Oakey and Toowoomba.
The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) said there would be scattered showers across the state that would ease at the start of next week.
"A cloud band has been travelling across Central Australia and is now pushing into western Queensland," meteorologist Shane Kennedy said.
"It's likely to bring scattered to widespread showers and periods of rain through parts of central [and] western Queensland.
"Looking further ahead, it will expand to parts of northern and southern Queensland."
The BOM said the most significant rainfall total would be in central Queensland and surrounding areas.
"We may see some moderate rainfall between Charters Towers to Emerald and then on Friday between Bowen and Bundaberg, and then on Saturday rainfall should shift a bit closer to the east coast," Mr Kennedy said.
"Friday will be the wettest day particularity around the Rockhampton area where we're more likely to see that rainfall pushing into 50, even up to 100 millimetres."
After a slight reprieve, cooler temperatures are expected to return to the south-east in the coming days.
"Lots of cool, dry air is pushing across southern Queensland at the moment and pushing up into central Queensland," Mr Kennedy said.
"We'll get quite cool temperatures through much of western and central Queensland."
Mr Kennedy said while the lower temperatures would not break any records, they could be up to 4–10C below average for inland Queensland.
"That'll be roughly south of about Charters Towers to Birdsville and Taroom where it will be particularly cold and rainy," he said.
Mr Kennedy said high tides would also peak on the state's south-east coast in the coming days.
"In the south-east, high tides will be fairly close to their highest astronomical tide level for the next few days," he said.
"So we may see some minor inundation of some of those low-lying areas."
