More thunderstorms are expected to hit Queensland’s east coast this afternoon and into the coming days, impacting flood clean up efforts in the south-east and up to the state’s north and central coast.

Residents in areas from Gympie in south Queensland to Ayr, 1,000km further north, have been warned to brace for severe storms this afternoon, which could produce damaging wind gusts.

The Bureau of Meteorology has predicted severe storms will hit south east Queensland tomorrow, with rain likely to worsen already saturated catchments.

“The storms tomorrow are expected to be severe into the south east so that means they could carry with them some stronger winds chance of hails as well as some heavier rainfall,” senior meteorologist Laura Boekel said.

“We have conditions now where catchments are already very saturated and when we see any rainfall after an event that we’ve just seen we can have some flash flooding.

“We want people to be aware tomorrow that it won’t take that much rainfall to see the impacts of the rain.”

Low-lying areas around creeks are most at risk of flooding, with residents warned to be weary of incoming storms.

Ms Boekel said storms will be caused by a south easterly change, which is expected to decrease humidity levels and cool temperatures in South East Queensland on Thursday.

The storms are expected to hit late morning or into the afternoon tomorrow, possibly pushing into the evening.

Ms Boekel said throughout Queensland’s south east, river levels have continued to go down following last week’s flood event.

“We have had a couple of days where rivers have settled a bit,” she said.

“We are seeing that easing trends but we are absolutely still on alert for what tomorrow’s weather could bring.”

Heatwave grips North Queensland

Ms Boekel said North Queenslanders suffering through record breaking temperatures could expect some relief going into the weekend.

Townsville airport this morning recorded a minimum temperature of 28.9 degrees, with more scorching conditions recorded.

“That’s a March record and 0.1 degrees cooler than the all time record,” Ms Boekel said.

Charters Towers experienced its hottest ever March day yesterday with 42.3C, breaking the record set in 1935.