Possible rainy Christmas ahead as Canberra braces for Thursday storm
Canberrans should consider a wet-weather plan for Christmas festivities, with rain expected over the holiday break.
The possiblity of wet weather for the holiday period comes as a storm front is expected to hit the ACT tomorrow, bringing up to 40 millimetres of rain and possible severe winds with an elevated risk from the early afternoon.
"There is a chance that some of those storms could be severe as they move through," Weatherzone meterologist Tom Hough said.
"Potentially more likely further south, but there is a chance that those could be severe.
"There's a band of showers moving through with a cold front, low-pressure trough that's moving across [New South Wales] tomorrow."
With Christmas still 12 days away, no one is making firm predictions, but Mr Hough said heavy rainfall was possible over the period.
The capital was looking at temperatures in the high 20s over Christmas.
"It's looking like it will be around 28 degrees [on Christmas day], which is a couple of degrees above average. The average is about 26," he said.
While there was plenty of scope for the forecast to change, Mr Hough said there was also a chance a few storms could be around for Christmas Day.
"It's not the best forecast, it's also not the worst," he said.
Bureau of Meterology forecaster Olenka Duma said it was too early to make a forecast for Christmas Day.
This week, however, rain was expected to develop overnight on Wednesday, increasing on Thursday, with thunderstorms expected from late Thursday morning through to the afternoon.
"We expect rain to ease on Thursday night," she said.
The Bureau of Meterology has cancelled two severe thunderstorm warnings this week after forecast storms didn't appear.
A warning for heavy rainfall, hail stones and possible flash flooding was cancelled on Monday night. A similar warning was cancelled the night before.
Ms Duma said the bureau issued severe thunderstorm warnings for weather events that were likely to be a one-in-10-year rainfall event.
Severe thunderstorms generally include heavy rainfall causing flash flooding, damaging wind gusts greater than 90km/h and hail greater than two centimetres in diameter, but the threshold for issuing a warning is dependent on the location.