A tropical low in a trough over the Gulf of Carpentaria is generating heavy rain, storms and strengthening winds for several states today.

Troughs are triggering showers and storms in parts of the Northern Territory, Queensland, NSW, Tasmania and South Australia.

https://twitter.com/BOM_Vic/status/1345463010530381831

There is a severe weather warning out for parts of Victoria after the state was lashed with hail and heavy rain overnight.

A trough over Western Australia is directing gusty winds and a hot air mass towards the west coast.

Here's your state-by-state weather forecast for Sunday, January 3:

New South Wales and ACT

The wet start to the new year is forecast to continue for NSW with showers increasing in the northeast.

Showers, cool-to-mild in the southeast. Showers, very warm in the southwest. Late shower, very warm in northwest.

Sydney will be cloudy with a high chance of showers and thunderstorms later today.

Temperatures are expected to range between 19C and 25C in the city.

Canberra will be cloudy with a very high (near 100 per cent) chance of showers. The chance of a thunderstorm, light winds and a top of 22C are forecast.

Victoria

Showers, cool-to-mild in the southwest. Rain, cool-to-mild in the southeast. Mostly sunny, very warm in the northwest. Showers/storms, warm in the northeast.

Cloudy in Melbourne with a very high chance of showers, becoming less likely late this afternoon and evening. The chance of a thunderstorm and a minimum of 17C and a maximum of 24C.

there is a strong wind warning for the West Coast, Central Coast, Central Gippsland Coast and East Gippsland Coast.

Queensland

Clearing shower, mild-to-warm in the southeast. Showers/storms, very warm in the northeast. Mostly cloudy, very warm in the northwest. Mostly sunny, very warm in the southwest.

Brisbane will be partly cloudy with a minimum of 22C and a maximum of 29C. Medium chance of showers, near the coast in the morning and inland during the afternoon.

https://twitter.com/BOM_Qld/status/1345284857530884097

A flood warning has been issued after heavy rainfall over the last few days has caused localised river and creek rises across upper parts of the Thomson River catchment.

Minor flooding is occurring along the Thomson River between Muttaburra and Bogewong with the latest observation for the Thomson River at Camoola Park was 3.45m and rising on December 31.

The river level at Camoola Park is expected to have peaked around the moderate flood level (4.0 metres) during Friday.

Minor flood levels are expected to be slowly easing today.

South Australia

Mostly cloudy, cool-to-mild in the southeast and central. Clearing shower, cool-to-mild in the west. Mostly cloudy, mild-to-warm in the north.

Adelaide will be partly cloudy with a minimum of 16C and a maximum of 22C. Slight chance of a shower about the hills and southern suburbs, near zero chance elsewhere.

Western Australia

Mostly cloudy, warm-to-very warm in the southwest and south. Windy, hot in the northwest. Mostly sunny, hot in the northeast.

Perth will be mostly sunny with a top temperature of 33C. Conditions could be windy today with gusts to 85km/h in the morning, mainly about the eastern suburbs and hills.

Tasmania

Late shower, warm in the southwest. Mostly cloudy, warm in the southeast. Late shower, cool-to-mild in the northwest. Showers, cool in the northeast.

Hobart will be cloudy with a slight chance of a shower in the far S in the afternoon. Daytime maximum temperatures between 18C and 22C.

Northern Territory

Mostly sunny, very warm in the NW Top End. Showers/storms, mild-to-warm in Arnhem. Late shower, very warm over the interior. Mostly sunny, very warm-to-hot in the south.

Darwin will be partly cloudy with a minimum of 27C and maximum of 34C. Slight chance of a shower, most likely in the late morning and afternoon. The chance of a thunderstorm.

The United Kingdom has registered 57,725 daily coronavirus cases marking the fifth straight day of record daily highs.

Government figures show the UK has recorded five days of cases above 50,000 – nearly double the levels of two weeks ago.

READ MORE: EU kicks off COVID-19 vaccine campaign

Hospitals in Britain have started receiving batches of the coronavirus vaccine developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca, approved by British regulators this week.

Some 530,000 doses of the vaccine will be available for rollout across the country from Monday.

Nursing home residents and their caretakers, those over 80 and hospital staff are set to receive the first doses.

READ MORE: New Year brings final UK-EU Brexit split

The Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath, part of Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust in southern England, was among the first to get the vaccine.

Doctor George Findlay, the trust’s chief medical officer, said the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is “much easier” to administer than the Pfizer-BioNTech, which needs storage at extremely cold temperatures.

Second doses of both vaccines will occur within 12 weeks rather than the 21 days initially planned, following a change in guidance that aims to increase the number of people who get the first vaccine.

More than a million people in the UK have received their first shot of the Pfizer vaccine.

The government says 445 people have died in the 28 days after testing positive for the coronavirus. That takes the confirmed total to 74,570, the sixth-highest death toll in the world.

School debate comes to a head

The British government is facing mounting pressure from the teachers' union to keep schools closed in England.

The call from the National Education Union, which represents over 450,000 members working in schools, came after Education Secretary Gavin Williamson changed tack and said all schools for younger pupils in London should remain shut next week as the capital battles with high levels of infections.

Mary Bousted, the union’s joint head, said the decision was “entirely necessary” but slammed the government for originally planning to allow some schools to reopen in areas where new infections were running high.

Two trampers who failed to return from a walk in the hills near Dunedin yesterday as the weather turned foul have been found. The pair were reported missing at about 3.30pm yesterday after going for a walk in the Silver Peaks area,…

The family of Fletcher Wong, who was found deceased by searchers on New Year’s Eve after he went missing from Rhythm & Vines, have expressed their heartfelt thanks to all those involved in finding him.The 19-year-old was last seen…

Some South Island residents are waking up to contaminated water supplies and “overwhelmed” wastewater systems – meaning no toilet flushing – after a night of heavy rain. And there’s more to come today.Thunderstorms in parts of…

Otto Lijzenga and his wife Kana Hirose were cycling through Spooners Range on Christmas Eve when a hanging branch in the middle of the track divided their paths forever.Lijzenga went under the branch. Hirose went to the side over…

Parts of the North Island that were lashed by thunderstorms, heavy rain and more than a 1000 lightning strikes yesterday are bracing for more bad weather.Yesterday MetService dished out heavy rain warnings and severe thunderstorm…

Test your brains with the Herald’s morning quiz. Be sure to check back on nzherald.co.nz at 3pm for the afternoon quiz. To challenge yourself with more quizzes, CLICK HERE.

Parts of the South Island already drenched by yesterday’s deluge are in for more rain today. Thunderstorms in parts of the lower South Island sparked flooding and slips that closed state highways and caused havoc for holidaymakers….

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will find out Monday whether the Australian can be extradited from the UK to the US to face espionage charges over the publication of secret American military documents.

District Judge Vanessa Baraitser is due to deliver her decision at London's Old Bailey courthouse at 10am Monday. If she grants the request, then Britain's home secretary, Priti Patel, would make the final decision.

Whichever side loses is expected to appeal, which could lead to years more legal wrangling.

READ MORE: Assange bugged while at Ecuadorian Embassy, UK court told

https://twitter.com/StellaMoris1/status/1344981277976494080

However, there's a possibility that outside forces may come into play that could instantly end the decade-long saga.

Stella Moris, Assange's partner and the mother of his two sons, has appealed to US President Donald Trump via Twitter to grant a pardon to Assange before he leaves office on January 20.

And even if Trump doesn't, there's speculation that his successor, Joe Biden, may take a more lenient approach to Assange's extradition process.

US prosecutors indicted the 49-year-old Assange on 17 espionage charges and one charge of computer misuse that carry a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison.

Lawyers acting on behalf of the US government said in their closing arguments after the four-week hearing in the fall that Assange's defence team had raised issues that were neither relevant nor admissible.

"Consistently, the defence asks this court to make findings, or act upon the submission, that the United States of America is guilty of torture, war crimes, murder, breaches of diplomatic and international law and that the United States of America is 'a lawless state'," they said. "These submissions are not only non-justiciable in these proceedings but should never have been made."

READ MORE: Ai Weiwei protests possible extradition of Julian Assange

Assange's defence team argued that he is entitled to First Amendment protections for the publication of leaked documents that exposed US military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan and that the US extradition request was politically motivated.

In their written closing arguments, Assange's legal team accused the US of an "extraordinary, unprecedented and politicised" prosecution that constitutes "a flagrant denial of his right to freedom of expression and poses a fundamental threat to the freedom of the press throughout the world."

Defence lawyers also said Assange was suffering from wide-ranging mental health issues, including suicidal tendencies, that could be exacerbated if he is placed in inhospitable prison conditions in the US.

They said his mental health deteriorated while he took asylum inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for years and that he was diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. Assange jumped bail in 2012 when he sought asylum at the embassy, where he stayed for seven years before being evicted and arrested. He has been held at Belmarsh prison in London since April 2019.

His legal team argued that Assange would, if extradited, likely face solitary confinement that would put him at a heightened risk of suicide. They said if he was subsequently convicted, he would probably be sent to the notorious ADX Supermax prison in Colorado, which is also inhabited by Unabomber Ted Kaczynski and Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

READ MORE: Julian Assange told to stop interrupting witnesses at UK hearing

Lawyers for the US government argued that Assange's mental state "is patently not so severe so as to preclude extradition."

Assange has attracted the support of high-profile figures, including the dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei and actress Pamela Anderson.

Daniel Ellsberg, the famous US whistleblower, also came out in support, telling the hearing that they had "very comparable political opinions."

The 89-year-old, widely credited for helping to bring about an end to the Vietnam War through his leaking of the Pentagon Papers in 1971, said the American public "needed urgently to know what was being done routinely in their name, and there was no other way for them to learn it than by unauthorised disclosure".

There are clear echoes between Assange and Ellsberg, who leaked over 7000 pages of classified documents to the press, including The New York Times and The Washington Post. Ellsberg was subsequently put on trial for 12 charges in connection with violations of the Espionage Act, which were punishable by up to 115 years in prison. The charges were dismissed in 1973 because of government misconduct against him.

Assange and his legal team will be hoping that developments in the US bring an end to his ordeal if the judge grants the US extradition request.