Australia Weather News

Icy and windy weather is blasting parts of the NSW central-west and Blue Mountains, although strong coastal winds are easing, the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) says.

Sunday morning was likely to be the coldest this year, BoM forecaster Rob Taggart said on Saturday.

"Apart from fairly widespread frost tomorrow morning, there's a weak rain band over the far northwest," he said.

"It's really Monday when the next ... front comes through."

In Sydney, large and powerful surf has hammered the coast, and the BoM warned coastal activities such as rock fishing, swimming and surfing would be hazardous.

"We have a strong wind warning for a lot of our coastal waters and some gales offshore but we're in an easing trend and winds will be lighter tomorrow," Mr Taggart said.

A warning for gale force winds and large and powerful surf on the Macquarie, Hunter, Batemans and Eden coasts remained this afternoon.

Coffs, Macquarie, Hunter, Sydney, Illawarra, Batemans and Eden coastal areas are expected to have an offshore swell of between three to five metres.

Snow fell in areas across NSW overnight, hitting the peaks of the NSW's alpine areas, the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney and the central-west after a cold snap moved across the south-east coast on Friday.

The SES said snow had now mostly turned to sludge in the lower Blue Mountains area and had warned drivers to be wary of black ice on the roads overnight.

On Friday, there were widespread reports of snowfalls in NSW's alpine areas, with light falls in the Blue Mountains and parts of the Central West.

The bureau is not expecting snow over the weekend, but Monday could see falls in Oberon and a low possibility it may fall in Katoomba and Guyra, Mr Taggart said.

In Victoria, a strong wind warning for the Central Gippsland Coast has been cancelled.

However one remained this afternoon for the East Gippsland Coast.

Melbourne remains cold. Sunday and Monday will see a top of 12 degrees before it begins to warm up slightly with a few showers providing cloud cover in the coming days.

Homes without power as winds lash SE Queensland

Several thousand homes are without power and a family escaped injury when a tree fell on their Upper Kedron house as gale force wind gusts buffeted parts of southeast Queensland overnight.

Winds reached between 70 to 80 kilometres an hour at times.

The weather bureau's Jonty Hall said the winds also brought down a number of trees and power lines on the Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast but the gusts had eased.

The fire service said part of the roof of the Kemp Place fire station in Brisbane's Fortitude Valley was also dislodged in the strong winds.

Fire crews were called to a number of other jobs overnight to clear trees and power lines on roads from the Sunshine Coast south to the Gold Coast.

The police rescue helicopter was used last night to rescue two men whose utility became stuck in a flooded creek on private property near Campbell Town in the state's midlands.

SES regional manager Mhairi Revie said the men are exceptionally lucky to be alive.

"There's a lot of water around at the moment and its just not safe to enter floodwaters," she said.