Snow flurries forecast across four states as cold weather fronts push through Australia’s south-east | Australia weather

A series of cold fronts crossing south-eastern Australia during the last week of winter should bring gusts of snow in four states.

“We have a series of fronts and hollows that will continue to sweep in the south-east of the country, bringing a burst of wet and windy time,” said Sarah Scully, senior meteorologist at the Meteorology Office.

A particularly cold front on Friday and Saturday was to drag down the cold air from Down to Antarctica and push it in the center and northern Australia.

The Alpine regions of Victoria and New South Wales expected 50 cm and 80 cm of snow – even up to a meter – between Wednesday afternoon and Saturday.

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The levels of snow should fall to low altitudes on Friday and Saturday, reaching 300 m in Tasmania, 600m in Victoria and 700m in New South Wales.

The snow was planned for the areas of Victoria, in particular the western parts of the Grampians, the Macedon Ranges and potentially the Dandenong Ranges in the east of Melbourne. In New South Wales, gusts were planned in the central sets as far north as Orange.

The temperatures below zero were planned through the Australian Alps – notably Falls Creek, Mount Buller, Mount Hotham and the Snowy Mountains – Thursday to Saturday.

There was the possibility of a snow sprinkling in Australia -Meridional – in the beaches of Flinders, about 200 km north of Adelaide, and even in the ranges of Mount Lofty, east of the city – something that Scully said had not happened since 2022.

She said that there could also be snow at the top of Kunanyi / Mount Wellington in Hobart.

The first of the cold fronts moved into New South Wales on Wednesday, going up the coast in the afternoon. Another followed near behind, pushing in the southwest of Victoria with a wave of strong winds. A little hollow was possible Thursday before a stronger front and a potential low pressure system on Friday and Saturday.

Between each front, there were probably lulls with a clearer weather, said Scully.

Overall, she said, it pointed out a cold start to spring for a large part of the country, including large parts of the tropics, with temperatures up to 12c below the average.

On the other hand, the temperatures of the sea surface have remained much warmer than the average in the northeast, the south-east and the southwest of Australia.

Last month, they were more than 0.56 ° C above average – which has made the warmest July since 1900. Globally, sea surface temperatures in July were the third warmer ever recorded.

The warmer oceans, according to the nomenclature, can mean “an increase in humidity and energy, which can improve the severity of storms and rain systems”.

The cold fronts crossing south-eastern Australia, including New South Wales, brought more wet and windy time, but Scully said that there were no other precipitation expected for the Northern Tablelands region struck by major floods.

She described this as a “massive relief”, given that a flood warning remained in place for the Nami river in the region on Wednesday afternoon.

Wednesday, violent weather warnings were in place to damage the winds near Geelong and above the oriental chains of Victoria and in the southeast parts of New South Wales.