Weather presenter Nate Byrne with the latest warnings this morning.
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00:00 The area that we're talking about is quite large here, seven districts in South Australia,
00:06 six across Victoria, but it does take up the majority of the state.
00:09 This is all being driven by a single frontal system.
00:12 It's not a huge front by any means and there's not much moisture associated with it at all,
00:17 but you can still pick up some cloud associated with it there.
00:20 Now, as it comes in, it's tapping into heat that we've had pooling in Western Australia
00:24 for a long time.
00:26 This system has been dragging it across the country and it's the hot, gusty northerly
00:30 winds ahead of this front that's really a concern, followed by then the wind direction
00:36 change that it's bringing.
00:38 West to south westerly winds, in fact, for many we'll see probably a couple of wind direction
00:42 changes through the day as this pushes through.
00:44 It's already come through South Australia, if it gives you any idea, in Adelaide, 35
00:48 degrees at 5am this morning.
00:50 There then this change came through and the temperatures dropped quite significantly,
00:55 but that change is still moving through.
00:56 So this is the area, extreme fire danger.
00:58 You can see how widespread it is, that catastrophic fire danger for the Wimmera.
01:03 And just in here, although it's one uniform colour, there are some variations and particularly
01:08 I'm watching the South West District in Victoria, that's the one just to the south of the Wimmera
01:13 where the catastrophic fire danger is.
01:15 It's extreme there, but it's a high level extreme.
01:17 It's pushing towards catastrophic.
01:20 Not there yet, but it wouldn't surprise me if the situation changes through the day as
01:23 things develop on the ground, we might see some variation in how those warnings are presented
01:27 to the public.
01:28 And Nate, tell us about that change that's going to move through and when that'll be.
01:32 Right, so it's all, it's very, very difficult to nail this precisely, especially because
01:38 this system is pretty messy.
01:40 So I had a chat with the Bureau of Meteorology's senior forecaster, Dean Narrowmore.
01:44 He took us through the details.
01:45 It's going to approach the Victorian border around that lunchtime to one o'clock hour,
01:51 then move into Western parts as we move into the early and middle afternoon.
01:55 It's going to be approaching the fire zone between that five to 7pm time frame and then
02:00 start approaching Geelong around eight o'clock, give or take about an hour, and then into
02:04 around the Melbourne area around nine or 10 o'clock tonight and then into eastern parts
02:09 of the state as we move through the overnight and early morning hours on Friday.
02:13 So it's going to take a while to move through and a very hot day as well for many.
02:17 A very long day ahead for many.
02:20 This isn't whipping through super quickly, unfortunately.
02:24 And the good news here is that behind it, conditions will ease relatively quickly, but
02:28 there's that change slowly marching through.
02:30 You can see we've got a couple of wind direction changes here.
02:34 Westerly, some southwesterly wind starting to push in.
02:37 That's what's going to cause the real concern because that changes the fire and how it behaves.
02:42 When you've got northerly winds, fires running south, the head is on the southern flank.
02:47 Then that wind direction changes, then all of a sudden the eastern flank becomes the
02:50 head of the fire.
02:52 So a very dangerous day on the ground.
02:53 And to add to all of this, Gemma, the dry lightning concerns, we could even see some
02:58 severe thunderstorms in the mix here, maybe producing damaging winds.
03:02 And when that happens, those winds don't follow these directions.
03:06 They go wherever they need to go, courtesy of the storm.
03:09 That could make conditions even more dangerous on the ground.
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