East north tropical coast of Queensland picking up 250mm rain in less than 24 hours, as the cyclone begins moving slowly west to the Gulf of Carpentaria.
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00:00 Hello I'm Angus here at the Bureau of Meteorology.
00:02 Today is Friday the 15th of December and this is another update on ex-tropical cyclone Jasper.
00:07 And over the past 24 hours we've seen the movement of Jasper really slow down across
00:12 the Cape York Peninsula, almost grinding to a halt somewhere in here over the centre of
00:17 the peninsula.
00:18 And because things are moving so slowly, that means these areas along the east north tropical
00:22 coast have continued to get heavy rainfall.
00:25 So over the past 24 hours we've seen a number of weather stations along this stretch of
00:29 coastline here pick up another 150 to 250 mm of rain and most of them had already had
00:36 at least 200 mm of rain the 24 hours before that.
00:39 So it's a lot more wet weather and we're expecting further rainfall through Friday and into Saturday
00:44 as Jasper very very slowly continues its trek westwards.
00:48 It's likely on Saturday we'll see the middle of Jasper, this L here on the map, move off
00:53 of the land and onto the ocean, the warm waters of the Gulf of Carpentaria.
00:57 But even as it does slowly move this way, just look at these further areas of rainfall
01:01 around central and eastern parts of the Cape York Peninsula.
01:04 So these places which have received two days of non-stop rainfall are going to get some
01:10 further wet weather on the way and of course we've maintained the severe weather warning
01:14 for those places that are likely to be most affected by this further incoming rainfall.
01:18 This is the current warning, it was just updated within the last hour, it is a warning for
01:23 further heavy rainfall.
01:24 We've taken the wind out of it now, the wind has eased for most areas but heavy rainfall
01:29 is set to continue around this area here.
01:31 It's a broad region of north Queensland, generally from Port Douglas northwards, although even
01:35 if you are down here, Cairns, Innisfail or further south do anticipate further spells
01:40 of rain through Friday and Saturday.
01:43 In terms of flooding, this is where we're currently placed with our river warnings for
01:47 flood warnings.
01:48 There's still the one major flood warning across the Daintree River here in the north
01:52 with a number of other rivers through north east Queensland at minor or moderate flood
01:56 warning but this is subject to change and we've still got this extensive network of
02:00 flood watches with rivers all through this purple area here likely to receive a decent
02:05 dose of rainfall in the next couple of days.
02:08 They could rise, we could see flooding through any of these river basins over the course
02:12 of Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
02:14 So it is still a dynamic and evolving situation, wet, saturated places are still expecting
02:19 more rainfall so if you're in the far north or you know people that are, make sure they're
02:23 ok, stay up to date with the latest, you can get official warnings and forecasts at the
02:27 Bureau website and on the weather app and we'll keep the updates rolling through social
02:31 media too.
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