We’ve got a mainly dry and warm few days coming up with the classic Spring NE winds howling down the coast in the afternoon. Those winds will be pumping in some moisture (and raising coastal fire danger levels in the current dry) ahead of the next change moving in on Monday. That change moves in at the surface and also drags up some cold air up high:

The combination of some decent moisture at the surface, cooling air up high and a surface trough means…a good chance of some Spring storms across NE NSW on Monday afternoon. The models show that too….Here’s the EC lightning forecast from late morning Monday through to the early hours of Tuesday:

Could be some decent storms and lightning rates around. With the big dry we would also be hoping for some good rain to reduce the risk of yet more lightning-started fires. Here’s the 24 hour rain forecast for Monday from a variety of models:

As you can see – and probably not too unexpectedly – there is a wide range in the forecast rain totals. Stormy spells are hard to forecast – so some areas will likely see some good rain while others see much much less. Around 10mm is a good guide for a total that would have a decent impact on fires. It’ll be down to radar watching on the day to see how much we get…..but good to have some forecast rain in the outlook. There is the potential for some showers in the cooler flow after the change on Tuesday, and some models actually show us picking up more on Tuesday than Monday – something to keep an eye on. You can see it here in the multi-model forecast:

Once we move through Tuesday it drys up and warms up once again. No sign @ this time of any bigger falls right now, so we’ll likely be back into drier weather once again.

Gratitude as always to the fantastic modellers at meteologix and tropical tidbits….whithout which these forecasts would be a lot less colourful.