Australia Weather News

Some of regional Victoria's most scenic spots are being blanketed with a light dusting of snow, courtesy of a wintry blast that's moving across Australia's south east this week.

Two low pressure systems are forecast to sweep across the country bringing snow, frost, hail and widespread rain to southern Australia.

In western Victoria, snow began falling in the early hours of Monday morning.

Ballarat horse trainer Melody Cunningham saw the light dusting emerge across the racetrack as her horses cantered through the morning frost.

"It's absolutely freezing," Ms Cunningham said.

"It started off pretty steady then it got really, really heavy. It was quite pretty actually — especially watching the horses work.

"It just looked like you see in movies, I guess, where it's just coming down really softly."

Ms Cunningham said it was the most snow she had seen in Ballarat in decades.

"It's very white, you can just see little white flakes drifting around everywhere," she said.

Snow was forecast to fall down to 400 metres in Victoria and across the alpine areas from Monday.

The Bureau of Meteorology has reported that light snow could also fall in Melbourne's outer east.

'Something to talk about other than coronavirus'

Third-generation Larpent dairy farmer Lachie Sutherland wakes up at 4:00am every day to check on his calves and get on with his milking.

This morning he shot a video of snow falling as he was milking in the dark at his property near Colac.

He first noticed the snow settling on his dog's back.

"I've never seen snow like that before," he said.

"Maybe sleet — but nothing like this."

Mr Sutherland said thousands of people had responded to the video he posted online.

"It's good for people to have something to talk about other than coronavirus," he said.

"I'm right near Colac, which has been hit particularly hard, so it's good for people to have something else going on."

Mr Sutherland said, as heavy restrictions were coming into place in Melbourne, farmers were getting on with their usual work to ensure people's food supply.

"We are lucky in Australia to have the access to the fresh food that we do," he said.

"People responding to my video are realising how early some farmers get up."

The little ones 'love it'

In Ballarat, the mercury hovered around 0 degrees Celsius, with similar low temperatures recorded along the south-west coast.

"For Ballarat, the last significant snowfall we saw was in August last year, but we did see a few snow flurries in November last year," Bureau meteorologist Tom Delamott said.

In Gordon, east of Ballarat, a light blanket of snow covered fields where sheep and young lambs were grazing.

"It's really big snowflakes coming down, and it's coming down pretty heavy," Gordon resident Jessica Sweet said.

"I've got two little ones with me and they are both loving it.

"It's on and off, [but] when it does snow it's pretty heavy."