Storm watch: Giant hail, wild winds, falls up to 100mm forecast for Qld

Queensland is set to be hammered by bad weather this week, with the possibility of severe storms and giant hail in some parts of the state, ahead of unseasonal rainfall for the South East.

Giant hail stones, heavy showers and damaging wind gusts have been forecast for parts of Queensland on Monday.

It comes as the Bureau of Meteorology warns of a “miserable week ahead”.

The Bureau has warned the western interior will be hit the hardest, with possibly severe thunderstorms predicted.

A trough covering western Queensland, due to move east, will bring isolated showers of up to 100mm.

Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Peter Classen on Sunday said he couldn’t rule out the possibility of flash flooding.

Hail in the Southern Downs. Storm activity, including hail, is forecast for Monday. Picture: Contributed

“Everything is very saturated at the moment, particularly further west of the Brisbane region like Darling Downs,” Mr Classen.

“That is something we’re watching closely, so we’re not expecting any flooding but it is something that we are looking at Queensland for sure.

“We are also watching closely the river levels there to see how they respond to this rainfall because we’ll see another day of isolated totals in excess of 100mm around the Cassowary Coast”.

Mr Classen said there was the possibility of giant hail stones for the south-west today.

“So we’re more concerned with that than flooding at this stage,” he said.

It is expected to remain overcast in the southeast on Monday, before rain sets in later in the week

On Monday, forecaster Livio Regano said heavier falls will begin on Tuesday.

“We’ve got two systems moving through and usually when we get those upper level troughs at this time of year they come through as a dry change, but not this time,” he said.

“It won’t be big falls, but there will be showers throughout the day.”

“We’ll have a bit of a break on Wednesday, but then the second system will come through and that one will be a bit bigger.”

Mr Regano said that the Brisbane region could expect falls of 10-15mm on Friday and Saturday.

“That is actually significant rainfall because normally this time of year you’d be averaging around 30-40mm a month, so that is a big chunk of that.”