In short:
A cold front moving across Australia’s south-east this weekend is expected to bring strong winds, rain, hail and snow.
In some areas, temperatures could drop up to 6 degrees below average, with winds reaching up to 90kph.
Queensland will be spared from the worst of the cold front, along with the Northern Territory.
Australia’s south-east is set for a weekend of rain, snow and freezing temperatures as a cold front moves through South Australia into Victoria, New South Wales and Tasmania.
Jonathan How, a forecaster at the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM), said this “classic wintertime cold front” was looking to be the strongest of the year so far, and was set to bring temperatures up to six degrees below average.
The cold front is forecast to bring hail, snow, rain and winds of up to 90 kilometres per hour.
“So [there] certainly is a bit of hazardous weather out there this weekend,” Mr How said.
The predicted winds coming with the cold front has led to a number of severe weather warnings across the south-east — ranging from Adelaide to Victoria’s north-eastern alps and New South Wales’s Illawarra.
Mr How said these winds, which could exceed 90kph in some parts, could bring down trees and powerlines, while creating blizzard-like conditions in some Alpine regions.
The strongest winds are expected to be across the coastal areas along the country’s south-east.
“Generally, for South Australia, this is probably the windiest system we’ve seen so far this year,” Mr How said.
“And then for Melbourne, and Canberra and Sydney as well, just that wind chill will really be the main factor at play.”
Showers and snow set for NSW, Tasmania and Victoria
Mr How said the cold front was expected to bring wet weather and snow to the south-east.
These showers will initially push through Adelaide towards Victoria, hitting Melbourne, Tasmania, Canberra and NSW’s Central Tablelands overnight on Friday.
The expectation, as of Friday afternoon, is this will bring up to 25 millimetres of rain, as well as 50mm in Alpine areas.
The cold front brought rains between 20 and 50mm when it moved through south-west Western Australia earlier in the week.
Mr How said this cold front was looking to be particularly the strongest for the Alpine areas, “bringing the biggest snowfall of the year so far”, forecast to bring up to half-a-metre of snow in NSW and Victoria’s ski mountains.
But the cold temperatures could also bring snowfall to Victoria’s Grampians and Central Ranges, with towns like Ballarat on the cards to see snow.
Snow flurries could also be recorded across NSW’s Northern and Central Tablelands, including the Blue Mountains and Oberon.
Moving north, Sydney is not expected to see rain, but temperatures are expected to be cold.
“Particularly for Sydney, most people will feel the wind chill and that’s also the case for Melbourne and Adelaide,” he said.
Queensland is also set to avoid the rain, with temperatures expected to rise from Sunday. Earlier this week however, snow and sleet were reported as far north as Queensland’s granite belt.
“So Queensland looks to be spared the worst of this particular system,” Mr How said.
“Particularly after we’ve seen some cold weather across the south-east of the state, including some snow flurries across the granite belt.”
While the Northern Territory is also spared from this cold front, temperatures in Darwin fell to 15.2 degrees Celsius overnight on Friday.
Darwin local Paul Costigan said while he didn’t think the cold snap was too unusual, he was feeling the cold more and more.
“We wait for nine months of the year to get three months of beautiful weather and this is part of the beautiful weather,” he said.
“You’re nuts to complain about it because in three weeks time you’re going to be sweating and miserable.”
Is this a record cold winter?
Mr How said, while temperatures are slightly colder to what’s expected for this time of year, the weather is not particularly unusual.
“It may just be that people have experienced a couple of mild winters and then some cold back-to-back systems coming through as melt. It may have been a bit of a shock to the system.”
Mr How added that currently, there have been no temperature records broken and that overall, nothing is unusual.
He said it’s typical to see these weather systems occur roughly every couple of weeks in southern Australia.
“And we do, and have seen, these cold outbreaks before.”
