Bushfires: Widespread rain and storms loom for blaze-hit regions

The fire-ravaged reaches of the nation’s southeast will be blanketed by rain and thunderstorms for most of the week.

The fire-ravaged reaches of the nation’s southeast will be blanketed by rain and thunderstorms for most of the week — and across the weekend — as firefighters continue to battle more than 60 uncontained blazes.

Following the recent heatwave, the wet weather comes as a welcome respite along much of the NSW coast, as well as eastern Victoria and southeast Queensland.

Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Dean Narramore said a strong easterly wind would bring heavy rain and thunderstorms to NSW on Tuesday and Queensland later in the week.

“Much of the country is going to have easterly winds, so it means we get moist wind off the ocean combined with cloud cover which will make it cooler, wet and stormy,” he said.

“We will then start to see showers and thunderstorms develop in Queensland on Wednesday right through to the weekend. We’re looking at widespread 20mm to 50mm of rain for the state, bar the far west.”

Mr Narramore said 100mm to 150mm of rain would fall on much of the east coast of NSW over the week and possibly up to 200mm for northeastern NSW and southeastern Queensland.

The rain on NSW’s east coast will also make it to the fire grounds on the south coast and Victoria’s east Gippsland region, which can expect 20mm to 40mm of rain over the week even as Melbourne warms to a maximum of 31C on Saturday.

Seven bushfires were still burning in Victoria on Monday evening, down from 10 fires on Friday night.

NSW’s temperature is expected to go the other way and be two to five degrees lower than average.

In Queensland, it will be warm, wet and humid.

South Australia will be mostly spared the storms, with Adelaide forecast to have little rain and an average maximum of 31C through the week.

Tasmania will also experience calmer conditions with less rain and an average high across the state in the low 20s is forecast.

Western Australia will experience a tropical low over the Kimberley and Pilbara, with rain that has a chance of moving offshore and developing into a cyclone.

The southwest of Western Australia will be dry and hot, and Perth could experience heatwave conditions.