The Grampians fire in western Victoria has jumped to emergency level in a worrying sign of what could happen over the next 36 hours because conditions are going to get much worse. So this a fire that has been burning for several days and has been fluctuating between watch and act and emergency. So, locals are well aware of it. This emergency warning is in relation to one portion of the fire only - there are several other areas around it that remain at watch and act. There's an emergency warning to leave Immediately for Moyston and Pomonal
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00:00Temperatures and winds aren't too bad but the vegetation is very dry and then
00:06even moderate winds are getting a bit of a kick up on the fire and we're already
00:10seeing pretty big smoke plumes coming out from this fire and as we get into
00:13tonight and to tomorrow we've got a cold front in Western South Australia at the
00:18moment. It's going to move across South Australia tonight and into Western
00:21Victoria tomorrow. Now ahead of that we're going to have very strong and
00:25gusty winds. We've got a severe weather warning current for much of Western
00:28Victoria and eastern parts of South Australia for damaging winds of 90 to
00:33100 kilometres an hour which is going to really put a push onto this fire.
00:37Temperatures are going to be into the mid to high 30s, low 40s for large areas
00:41as well and then after a few hours of those strong and gusty northerly winds
00:45this front will then move in with a very strong and sharp westerly change. So we
00:49could see the winds fluctuate between northerly, northwesterly, maybe some
00:52northeasterly and then swing right around to a west or southwesterly in the
00:56mid to late afternoon hours tomorrow right across the fire area and because
01:01of the mountainous terrain as well we could get local variations in that wind
01:04as well. So it's going to be a complex, dangerous and erratic fire day tomorrow
01:09across much of the Grampians. Incredibly so. So just repeating that, winds of up
01:14around up to 100 k's an hour could hit that fire tomorrow. Yeah that's right.
01:21Most of the gusts will be in that 50-60 sustained area but we could see
01:25gusts, that's right, into 90 to 100 kilometres an hour and that's going to
01:29cause some major problems. Yeah and just going through this once
01:33again because it's important information for people in that area, that
01:36peak area of concern with that Grampians fire is going to be through the
01:41afternoon tomorrow. Yeah that's right, pretty much. We'll see those winds pick
01:45up from the late morning from there somewhere between northeasterly to
01:48northwesterly so the fire will probably run very quickly to the south then that
01:53wind change will come sometime in the mid to late afternoon and then that'll
01:56shift the fire from running southerly to into more of an easterly direction as
02:00that wind change comes in and that's the biggest concern when we have this very
02:04erratic and dangerous shift in the direction in which the fire goes and
02:08that's dependent on that wind change which at this stage will be the afternoon
02:11and evening. And obviously if there are any other fires that pop up in Victoria
02:14in the next 24 hours that'll be incredibly dangerous with them too. But
02:18just going to the situation in South Australia now because that was today was
02:22kind of like the principal fire danger area for South Australia with conditions
02:27ahead of what they were going to be in Victoria tomorrow. Thankfully there's
02:32kind of no major fires of significance there today. Yeah so far so good
02:38we've still got a few hours to go of course and yeah main issue or worry area is the
02:43Mount Lofty Ranges and the west coast of South Australia. The front will move
02:47through the west coast in the next few hours but probably won't get to the
02:50Mount Lofty areas until the early hours of the morning. So it's gonna be a very
02:53warm and breezy night through Adelaide and the Lofty Ranges and then the
02:57westerly change will hit them sometime tomorrow morning, mid to late morning.
03:00And we don't want to neglect the rest of the country on Christmas Day
03:06Dean. So yeah what can you basically tell us about the rest of the nation including Tassie?
03:12Yeah look today it's almost a perfect Christmas Day right around the
03:17country. Right across the eastern Australia we've got temperatures in the
03:19high 20s low 30s with lots of sunshine so beautiful for barbecues pools and
03:24beaches. Even down into Victoria we've seen a warm and sunny day but things
03:28will turn tomorrow as we've just heard. Tasmania being the low to mid 20s today
03:32they'll get into the high 20s to low 30s tomorrow with some showers ahead of that
03:36front. Adelaide and South Australia hot day today cool change tonight into
03:41tomorrow morning. WA very different they're actually quite cool at the
03:44moment breezy conditions around Perth pretty dry in the south and across our
03:48tropical north pretty cool in Darwin today only 30 months of morning rain
03:52then just showers and storms hit and miss across the top. And no signs yet of
03:57a monsoon trough developing over over the north of the nation which is what
04:01generally spawns cyclones? Yeah absolutely and it's not even into
04:05Southeast Asia which is normally we see some activity there at the moment so
04:08we're probably at least into the new year before we see any signs of
04:12monsoonal activity across northern Australia.