High pressure to dominate, as fire danger increases

Stable conditions are expected for the vast majority of Australia over the coming days, as a large 1037 hectopascal high dominates the country.

This high will maintain fine and dry conditions across southern Australia, with cool nights and frosts likely, whilst the onshore southeasterly winds will provide a few showers for far North Queensland.

Dry southeasterly winds will strengthen across inland Queensland, the Northern Territory and northern Western Australia over the coming days, combining with warm temperatures, increasing the fire danger significantly from mid-week, with numerous forecast districts likely to see severe fire danger across the NT and inland-northern WA. Whilst this isn't unusual for this time of year, grass fires could become uncontrollable.

As this high shifts into NSW on Wednesday, southeasterly trade winds are expected to strengthen across North Queensland, with the threat of localised damaging wind gusts to 90km/h for parts of the North Tropical Coast and Tablelands. Scattered showers are expected within this southeasterly wind regime and will continue into Thursday and Friday whilst contracting north as this ridge weakens and moves off the east coast.

Image 1: Potential Fire Weather Risk Levels next 6 days. Image via EWN.

Image 2: A large high pressure system dominates the country this week. Image via WeatherWatch MetCentre.

Image 3 & 4: Potential wind gusts from ICON & EC models. Images via Windy.com