
‘Bomb cyclone' pummels eastern Australia with heavy rains and strong winds
Authorities on Tuesday warned that parts of New South Wales could also expect
the wild weather
to worsen in the next 24 hours, with up to 250mm of rain and winds up to 125km/h predicted.
Australia's weather bureau said a 'bomb cyclone', or 'bombogenesis', was a low-pressure system that formed quickly and caused pressure to drop significantly within a short period of time.
The weather system is expected to shift offshore into the Tasman Sea on Wednesday and ease by Thursday, the bureau said.
READ MORE
'Damaging winds and large seas will continue across much of the coast through Wednesday, with warnings expected to continue,' Senior Meteorologist Helen Reid said.
'Conditions will continue to ease into Friday with only very light isolated showers lingering about the east coast by the end of the week.'
Emergency services minister Jihad Dib said the size of the system was 'enormous'.
'It may seem pretty bad but the terrible thing is the situation is going to worsen over the course of the next 24 hours,' he told a news conference on Tuesday afternoon.
Residents living along areas vulnerable to coastal erosion have been told to leave their homes with minor flood warnings also in place for several communities along the state's Mid North Coast.
[
Europe's heatwave in pictures - Most of continent swelters as Ireland enjoys cooler conditions
Opens in new window
]
Qantas Airways cancelled at least 11 domestic flights operating from Sydney and Virgin Australia cancelled 12, the Sydney Airport website showed. No international flights have been affected.
'Some services on Virgin Australia's network have been impacted by adverse weather in Sydney and Newcastle today,' a Virgin Australia spokesperson said by email.
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2025
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Irish Times
an hour ago
- Irish Times
Laura Kennedy: Welcome to Canberra winter where I am wearing thermal long johns like an old man in a Western
The Irish immigrant makes two grim discoveries on their first winter in Australia – first, Australia actually has a winter and, second, Australians apparently decline to insulate homes. They may have some sort of moral objection to ensuring that it is warmer inside the house than outside it. Or perhaps they're a people of such hardy, summery constitution overall that they simply forgot to insulate their dwellings. I'm unsure of the lore which constitutes the basis of this national 'colder in than out' rule. I just know that Australians have come to accept it while the rest of us have not. They don't complain. Or if they do, I can't hear them over the sound of all the non-Australians wondering aloud how it could be four degrees outside, and also in the kitchen. This week alone, I have witnessed people from the Netherlands, Canada (yeah – the snowy one), China and the UK all complaining about being murderously cold inside their house or apartment. 'I go to the gym just so I can feel my own feet,' the Canadian said. READ MORE 'In Canada we expect it. Things are built with an understanding of the climate. But here, it's another kind of cold,' they said, their eyes affecting a sort of odd, glazed look, as though they had left warm feet behind in Canada. I nodded sympathetically. Incidentally, it is winter here in Canberra now, where temperatures hit below minus seven one night this week and where I am wearing thermal long johns to bed like an old man in a Western. Just as people at home emerge from, or are still stuck in, the heatwave you've all been complaining about. Naturally, having enjoyed an Australian summer already this year, it would be a very bad look for me to express jealousy of the fact that Limerick 'got a nice run of sunny days, in fairness'. And yet, here I am, sitting in an Australian apartment with my coat on, jealous of my niece and nephew (ages five and three) enjoying a whippy ice cream this month in the Mediterranean luxury of their Limerick back garden paddling pool. It's shaped like a turtle. I'm not proud of it – the jealousy, not the paddling pool. Based on reports from friends and family at home, I understand that Ireland has been managing the kind of heat my mother used to describe as 'oppressive' while puffing her cheeks out like a woman overburdened with it all. It's a word generally reserved for dystopian political regimes and the experience of just having somehow zipped yourself dangerously into a pair of jeans three sizes too small. All the messages from home these last weeks suggest a country in extremis. 'I've gone to the seaside to wait it out,' my friend's voice note said, in a tone that evoked someone faking their own death to evade arrest. 'The Londis has run out of Soleros,' came another message, like someone reporting from the frontlines of a devastating natural disaster. Everyone who has been in touch from home appears to have been felled by the kind of hot weather which during my childhood would have necessitated a dinner of cold ham, iceberg lettuce, half a boiled egg and a large, wet slice of posthumous tomato. A slice of Irish tomato of the 1990s, which slithers over the tongue and down the throat like a bad oyster. This kind of dinner is a beautiful (if gastronomically repulsive) tradition in our culture – one which has thankfully been obliterated now that we can order our dinner via apps when we're too tired or hot to cook. All cultures have their version. It's the sort of dinner the British call 'picky bits', except they get their picky bits at Marks and Spencer, and it's a dinner of olives and Manchego wrapped in prosciutto and artichoke hearts. Nobody has boiled an egg inside a nuclear reactor, such that throwing it at a person could knock them unconscious, and you eat this dinner on a picnic blanket on Hampstead Heath or off the Elgin Marbles instead of your mother's kitchen table as she says: 'Nobody could be cooking in this weather, you'd get Jaysus heat stroke.' As you can likely tell, Canberra's winter can make a person wax sentimental for an Irish summer. I find myself yearning for a time when 'June' or 'July' meant hot weather and weird, deconstructed, low-effort dinners containing not one shred of dietary fibre. For a time when I could feel my feet. This is particularly ironic, since attending a convent school in Limerick meant having chilblained feet and hands with blue fingernails for 12 consecutive years. Had they looked nice, the radiators would largely have been decorative. I've been told by some readers of this column that I'm too negative about Ireland and too positive about Australia. Others, naturally, have accused me of directly the opposite, so I suppose I'll have to put the whole thing down to journalistic balance and await my Pulitzer any day now. But I wouldn't want anyone thinking that I don't hear the feedback. That I don't listen. So for those who say I'm down on my deeply beloved home country, which I complain about and write love letters to in equal measure, like every Irish expat writer, I wanted to share this potentially libellous message about Australian buildings (many of which we probably built, to be fair, so it might be our own fault). They are constructed neither for summer nor winter, but rather to maximise a sort of homesteading spirit of personal toughness in the face of a vast, capricious and indomitable natural landscape. That's very poetic, but it feels a smidge less so when you're wearing your scarf and gloves while trying to butter toast. The Australians get a lot of things right – coffee; side servings of chips that are somehow one kilo of chips; the cost of electricity. But! If you want your living room to feel warmer than the street it overlooks in winter, I'm afraid you'll have to move to Limerick. Or one of the warmer parts of Australia. Sign up to The Irish Times Abroad newsletter for Irish-connected people around the world. Here you'll find readers' stories of their lives overseas, plus news, business, sports, opinion, culture and lifestyle journalism relevant to Irish people around the world If you live overseas and would like to share your experience with Irish Times Abroad, you can use the form below, or email abroad@ with a little information about you and what you do. Thank you


Irish Times
an hour ago
- Irish Times
Ireland experiences fourth hottest June on record
Last month was the fourth warmest June in Ireland since data began to be collected by meteorologists in 1900, Met Éireann has said. It was also 'notably warmer than average' this year, with an average temperature of just over 15 degrees across the country – almost 1.5 degrees above the most recent long-term average for the month. The latest data continues the 'warmer-than-normal monthly trend' observed by Met Éireann this year. To date, four months have ranked in the top eight warmest recorded over 126 years – March, April, May and June. The highest temperature recorded in Ireland so far in 2025 was in Mount Dillon, Co Roscommon with 29.6 degrees on June 20th. READ MORE On the same day, Malin Head in Co Donegal, the northernmost point on the island, saw its hottest temperature recorded since 1957, reaching 25.5 degrees. [ Irish in Europe describe life in heatwave Opens in new window ] Met Éireann said provisional rainfall data suggested last month was wetter than average too – an average of 100mm, making it the wettest June since 2022. It added that Munster was the driest area of the country, and the West the wettest. A weather station in Athenry, Co Galway recorded 23 wet days. Last month had less sunshine than average across the country, with Met Éireann saying the West was most affected by its absence. This was in spite of the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, taking place on June 21st. As continental Europe entered a heatwave towards the end of the month with the build up of an intense area of high pressure, Met Éireann said 'Ireland stayed on the cloudier northern edge of the heat dome'. Temperatures on the Continent reached over 40 degrees in parts of Portugal, Spain, France and Italy. Citing the high temperatures and substantial rainfall, Met Éireann added that many people experienced 'some uncomfortably high night-time temperatures' in Ireland during June.


Irish Times
a day ago
- Irish Times
‘Bomb cyclone' pummels eastern Australia with heavy rains and strong winds
A 'bomb cyclone' has lashed Australia's most populous state with heavy rain and strong winds, forcing airlines to cancel domestic flights and prompting evacuation warnings in coastal communities. Authorities on Tuesday warned that parts of New South Wales could also expect the wild weather to worsen in the next 24 hours, with up to 250mm of rain and winds up to 125km/h predicted. Australia's weather bureau said a 'bomb cyclone', or 'bombogenesis', was a low-pressure system that formed quickly and caused pressure to drop significantly within a short period of time. The weather system is expected to shift offshore into the Tasman Sea on Wednesday and ease by Thursday, the bureau said. READ MORE 'Damaging winds and large seas will continue across much of the coast through Wednesday, with warnings expected to continue,' Senior Meteorologist Helen Reid said. 'Conditions will continue to ease into Friday with only very light isolated showers lingering about the east coast by the end of the week.' Emergency services minister Jihad Dib said the size of the system was 'enormous'. 'It may seem pretty bad but the terrible thing is the situation is going to worsen over the course of the next 24 hours,' he told a news conference on Tuesday afternoon. Residents living along areas vulnerable to coastal erosion have been told to leave their homes with minor flood warnings also in place for several communities along the state's Mid North Coast. [ Europe's heatwave in pictures - Most of continent swelters as Ireland enjoys cooler conditions Opens in new window ] Qantas Airways cancelled at least 11 domestic flights operating from Sydney and Virgin Australia cancelled 12, the Sydney Airport website showed. No international flights have been affected. 'Some services on Virgin Australia's network have been impacted by adverse weather in Sydney and Newcastle today,' a Virgin Australia spokesperson said by email. (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2025