Brisbane’s wet weather to clear for cold nights mid-week

A rainy start to the week is expected to drag through to mid-Tuesday, but overnight temperatures could plummet after a nationwide cloud band lifts mid-week.

Senior meteorologist Harry Clarke said weather in Brisbane would remain bleak until Tuesday afternoon, with the between 10 millimetres and 30 millimetres of rainfall expected in the city during that time.

“There are, particularly towards the Gold Coast hinterland, higher falls than that expected … picking up 50 or maybe even 100 millimetres by the time this event is all said and done tomorrow,” he said.

“It’s not flooding rain, more moderate, but certainly the heaviest rain we’ve had in a while.”

Blanketing cloud would also drive down daytime temperatures to the low 20s, although Clarke said it would insulate Brisbane at night.

“Once this system clears off Tuesday evening and into Wednesday we’ll get a burst of cooler, drier south-westerly winds behind it, so we’ll see a return to mostly sunny conditions,” Clarke said.

However, he said nighttime temperatures could dip into the single digits.

The cloud band sitting over Brisbane on Monday – and spanning from the Kimberly region in Western Australia to the southern NSW coast – was bringing rain to the bulk of the south-east, as well as parts of western Queensland.

He said the “unseasonable” rainfall in the Queensland’s west peaked at about 42 millimetres in Windorah, a rural locality more than 1200 kilometres north-west of Brisbane that was hit in widespread flooding of the region in March.

In Brisbane, wet weather spotted across the past week brought a total of 33 millimetres of rain, about half of which fell on Friday (14.4 millimetres).

Over the weekend, fans gathered for Magic Round dodged “hit-and-miss” showers, although the expected peak on Sunday did not arrive, with the weather bureau recording less than 1 millimetre of rainfall.

The last time the city recorded a rainfall above 14 millimetres on a single day was in early March when heavy storms hit the region.

Clarke also warned any beachgoers not deterred by the rain that heavy swell and big tides at the Sunshine and Gold Coasts had created rough swimming conditions.