Electric start to new year as 'severe' storm warnings issued for two states
It's been an electric start to the new year as lightning flashes illuminate the skies and the roll of thunder becomes an all too familiar sound.
And more storms are expected across the south-east, with severe thunderstorm warnings today issued for Southern Queensland and the Scenic Rim, as well as western Sydney and surrounds.
Sydney's skies turned dark around 2pm (AEDT) and parts of the city were pounded by hail stones.
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Hail pounded Spring Farm in south west Sydney, shortly after 2:30pm. Damien McCartney
The storm activity is being fuelled by ex-tropical cyclone Ellie, which is slowly moving over northern Western Australia causing record-breaking floods.
"South-east Australia will see showers and thunderstorms in the coming days, possibly severe in parts of Victoria, NSW and SE Queensland," the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) said.
"Cooler air will push over behind the storms, conditions clearing towards the weekend."
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Multiple severe storm warnings have been issued across NSW, Queensland. BoM
It comes after Weatherzone confirmed 1,023,173 strikes were detected within 700 kilometres of Wagga Wagga on Monday, January 2.
A cold front is also stretching across much of the country, but was "particularly unstable on Monday because of a combination of an upper trough", which met with the warm air mass driven by Ellie.
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Lightning detected by the Weatherzone Total Lightning Network (WZTLN) on Monday within 700km of Wagga Wagga. Weatherzone / Google Maps
Major flooding is occurring across parts of the Kimberley in WA, with Fitzroy Crossing now resembling an inland sea. Department of Fire and Emergency Services WA
Many of the storms produced by the system were "severe", and were accompanied by large hail and damaging winds.
"A wind gust of 96km/h was recorded in Wilcannia, its strongest gust in three years," Weatherzone said.
Ex-tropical cyclone Ellie is the second storm of cyclone season, which typically runs from the start of November to the end of April.
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