After a slow start to storm season, the first significant thunderstorms of the season are set to develop for parts of SE QLD and NE NSW Thursday during afternoon.
An upper trough and surface trough will combine with increasing moisture to produce a moderately unstable environment across eastern NSW and QLD.
This is expected to lead to a scattering of thunderstorms developing across the Darling Downs whilst rapidly moving east during the early afternoon hours.
Strong, but linear wind shear through the atmosphere is expected to help in the development of clusters or lines of thunderstorms, with the potential for a large squall line to develop across southern QLD, extending into northern NSW.
If this scenario unfolds, a few storms are likely to become severe, with damaging winds being the primary threat. Should storm activity interact with the sea breeze front across the coastal plain, large hail may become a threat, however this is considered low at this stage.
In the wake of this system, strong to locally damaging west to northwesterly winds to 90km/h may develop across parts of the Northern Tablelands of NSW during Thursday afternoon. This will lead to an increase in fire danger across this region which has already been decimated by recent fires.
Further dust storms will develop across inland parts of the state, reaching the east coast late Thursday evening before clearing Friday.
Image 1: Bureau of Meteorology thunderstorm forecast. Thursday 16th October. Image via Twitter.