Jasper will move from the Queensland peninsular to the gulf over 36 hours beginning Thursday.
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00:00 Hello, it's Angus here at the Bureau of Meteorology with the latest on ex-tropical cyclone Jasper.
00:05 I say ex-tropical cyclone because it has been reclassified as a tropical low.
00:10 However, when Jasper crossed the coast of Queensland, just north of Port Douglas around
00:14 9 o'clock on Wednesday evening, it was a category 2 tropical cyclone, and since then we have
00:19 seen widespread heavy rainfall, flooding and damaging wind.
00:24 There is more severe weather on the cards for the rest of today and much of Friday,
00:27 and that's what we're here to focus on.
00:29 The severe weather which is still to come as Jasper crosses north Queensland.
00:34 First thing we'll look at is rainfall which has fallen last night and this morning, and
00:37 we can see fairly extensive yellow signals here in our radar showing the regions of heavy
00:42 rain which have just been driving onto the coastline, really bringing up those rainfall
00:47 numbers.
00:48 Top tallies that we've seen so far exceed 500mm about parts of the Daintree area, with
00:53 a number of other spots along this coast between Cooktown and Cardwell tallying between 200
00:58 and 400mm of rain in the past 24 hours.
01:02 That has led to extensive flooding and there's also been some really strong wind in this
01:07 region.
01:08 But it's not over yet, and let's take a look at why.
01:11 If we look at the next 36 hours between the middle of the day Thursday and the end of
01:15 the day on Friday, we're going to see that Jasper, which is represented by this L on
01:20 the map here, just moves really, really slowly across the north of Queensland.
01:24 It takes that full 36 hour period for Jasper to move from the central part of the peninsula
01:30 out towards the Gulf, probably reaching Gulf waters late Friday night or maybe early on
01:34 Saturday morning.
01:36 Across that 36 hour period we expect more or less uninterrupted rainfall across the
01:40 north tropical coast of Queensland as well as around much of the peninsula area here
01:44 through inland places too.
01:46 With this further incoming persistent rain we have maintained this broad severe weather
01:51 warning right through this yellow area from about Innisfail northwards, we could see heavy
01:55 to locally intense rain through the rest of the day Thursday and much of the day on Friday
02:00 as well, and with the winds still wrapping into that low pressure system, likely to see
02:05 a continuation of damaging wind gusts which could bring down further trees and power lines
02:09 and could cause further damage to property.
02:12 With all of this incoming rainfall, no surprise really to see flooding across northern parts
02:17 of Queensland, here's a snapshot of the current flood situation for these northern rivers,
02:21 with two rivers currently in major flooding, including the Daintree River here in the north
02:26 and the Barron River here which affects parts of Cairns.
02:29 Other rivers have minor to moderate flooding currently but we could see further rivers
02:34 added to this.
02:35 All across the north of Queensland we have flood watches through all of these purple
02:40 areas here.
02:41 Flood watches are regions that we're tracking closely, monitoring how that rain falls across
02:45 the catchment, how the river responds to that, and any of these places could see flood warnings
02:51 issued if the rivers rise rapidly enough.
02:53 So this is a dynamic and evolving situation, if you're in the north or you know people
02:58 that are, share this information with them, and don't forget you can always find the latest
03:01 severe weather information and flood information at the Bureau website, do check out the app
03:07 as well, and we will keep these updates headed your way through our social media channels.
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