A storm outbreak is set to hit broad parts of the east coast on Wednesday afternoon, with warnings of possible damaging winds and large hail for much of coastal New South Wales into south-east Queensland.   

Meanwhile heat is building in the west, with maximum temperatures on track to break records on Thursday for some areas near the west coast.

The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) is forecasting Wednesday’s storm risk to extend from about Illawarra northwards, into the Northern Rivers and south-east Queensland.

This includes Sydney and surrounds.

BOM senior meteorologist Angus Hines said some of these storms could potentially become severe.

“Since storms form with the heat of the sun as part of their fuel, it’s likely to be the warmer hours of the day, so mostly this afternoon, when the storms are expected to develop across those eastern regions.”

In Queensland, he said severe storms were possible for areas just inland of Brisbane and the Gold Coast, including Lockyer Valley, while in NSW, coastal areas were most at risk.

Mr Hines said the storms had a “spring-like” quality to them, driven in part by the warm weather being experienced across the regions today.

While the storms will be met with some rain, total falls are are only expected to be slight to moderate, with up to 5 millimetres forecast for NSW and Queensland.

Further south, a cold-front moving across the Tasmania, Victoria and southern New South Wales is delivering moderate showers between 5 and 15 millimetres.

The bureau has issued a minor flood warning for Tasmania’s North Esk river.

The stormy end to the season marks a contrast to the overall conditions throughout August, which have been very dry across much of the country, according to data from the bureau.

July was also dry and warm for southern parts of the country.

“There’s been a bit of a lack of those big weather systems over the past couple of months.”

WA nudging record heat

In Western Australia, it has been a very warm end to winter.

On Monday, large parts of the state were 10 to 16 degrees Celsius above average, with August records broken in Eucla, near the state’s border.

The small south-coastal town reached 34.C on the 28th August, according to data from the bureau, making Eucla’s warmest August day since records began 105 years ago.

Mr Hines said the heat would re-emerge on Thursday, this time closer to the west coast near Perth, with several locations “approaching and potentially breaching” more August maximum temperature records. 

He said said this was through parts of the wheatbelt, including York, Beverley, Bencubbin, Morawa and Mount Magnet, which had forecast maximum temperatures between 29C and 34C.

Perth is not forecast to break a record, but is expected to be very warm for August with a forecast maximum of 28C.

Heat spreads east

By early next week, the heat will begin to spread east, setting up a warm start to spring for the central and eastern parts of the country.

Mr Hines said this would be concentrated in South Australia on the weekend, and through the eastern states on Monday, from Tasmania to about “halfway up” Queensland.

“The warmth which is building in Western Australia tomorrow … does sort of smear out across central and eastern parts of the country through the course of the weekend, and Monday” he said. Thursday.”

The bureau’s current long-range outlook from September to November is tipping spring to be warm and dry for much of the country.