Australia Weather News

Temperatures across Queensland will start to climb from today after a smattering of storms across the northern half of the state overnight.

Parts of the Gulf Country, North West, Northern Flinders, and Upper Goldfields received rainfall overnight. 

The highest observations were 51 millimetres at Kowanyama, 66mm at Palmerville, and 95mm in the hills inland from Mackay.

"We could see a few big thunderstorms but across inland parts of the north east really from Mackay up to Cairns a little bit away from the coastline," Bureau of Meteorology senior meteorologist Angus Hines said. 

Mr Hines said Queensland was also heading into a "prolonged run of warm weather" over the next few days.

"The second half of the week, we'll see many spots with temperatures somewhere between 5 to 7 degrees warmer than their typical January maximum temps," Mr Hines said. 

A heatwave warning is in place across most of the state, impacting locations including Brisbane, Biloela, Barcaldine, Dalby, Goondiwindi, Ipswich, Isisford, Roma, Stanthorpe, and St George.

"We'll see most places today a couple of degrees warmer than they were yesterday," Mr Hines said.

He said the next few days will be "relatively settled, dry, sunny and, of course, warm."

The forecast shows today is the start of a run of days above 40 degrees in western parts of the state with Birdsville set to reach 44 today and 46 tomorrow. 

Environment Australia's Beau Frigault said heat was "one of the biggest silent killers" in Australia. 

Dr Frigault advised those experiencing heatwave conditions to find a place with air conditioning, exercise indoors or in the cooler parts of the day, stay hydrated, and check in on vulnerable people. 

"Particularly people like pregnant women, children, people with cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, they can become very susceptible to extreme heatwaves for longer periods of time and those people can become quite unwell," Dr Frigault said.

Hot weather, high winds out west

In western Queensland, an outback council has been working closely with property owners to mitigate bushfire risks. 

"Hot weather and high winds — this is bushfire weather," Blackall-Tambo council CEO Mike Lollback said. 

This week the council has moved around 150 head of cattle from surrounding properties onto the "town common", a shared piece of reserve land, to allow graziers to focus on protecting their properties. 

There is an active avoid smoke warning in Jericho as well as a number of contained fires in the central west region. 

Mr Lollback said the region was "suffering badly at the moment" due to a lack of rain.