Australia Weather News

A powerful winter cold front will cause a broad band of rain and strong winds to sweep across southern Australia during the coming days.

The soaking, which arrived on the Western Australian west coast overnight, will rapidly spread across South Australia on Saturday before intensifying across south-east states on Sunday.

While the system promises to deliver timely falls for farmers, the best in at least a month, heavy rain predicted on the Victorian ranges has triggered a flood watch for 10 catchments.

Pockets of heavy rain along with thunderstorms are also possible in parts of WA, SA and southern inland New South Wales.

A second front will quickly follow over WA on Monday, and should reach south-east states on Tuesday and Wednesday, boosting five-day totals to at least 25 millimetres across a huge swathe of southern Australia.

For some stretches of the southern coast and ranges, including around Adelaide, totals may exceed 50mm, while in the high country of north-east Victoria, 100mm could fall.

A deep low-pressure system associated with the initial front will also raise the risk of damaging gusts in multiple states.

The threat will kick off over southern WA today, and while the highest wind speeds should impact the state's south coast, Perth's coastal suburbs can expect peak gusts to about 80 kilometres per hour.

The burst of wild winds will then spread to SA on Sunday, with Adelaide likely to see gusts near 70 km/h from the afternoon, and possibly higher depending on the exact location of the low.

The strongest winds will then shift to eastern states on Monday, and there is the potential parts of Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne will see gusts exceed the warning threshold of 90km/h.

For exposed parts of the southern coast and ranges, peak speeds should exceed 100km/h on Monday, raising the risk of downed trees and power outages.

Weekend washout ahead for struggling snow season

This winter has so far delivered a substandard ski season.

Snow conditions have been especially dire at lower elevations, illustrated in the graph below of the natural snow depth at Deep Creek, where a permanent snow pack has struggled to form all winter.

The only other comparable years halfway through a season at Deep Creek are 2020 and perhaps 1973.

Higher elevations though, have fared slightly better.

The snow depth at the top of Mount Hotham was reported at 61 centimetres on Friday, and while that is 40cm below average, it is more snow for early August than was measured in six previous years, since 1993, including 2023 and 2020.

But a mild northerly airstream ahead of the front will have the 2026 snow season on life support after this weekend.

When the heaviest precipitation arrives across the alpine region on Sunday, temperatures will be comfortably above zero, and that means heavy rain.

How much damage is done to the existing cover depends on altitude. 

Initially, early Sunday morning snow may fall down to about 1,500 metres, but as temperatures warm throughout the day, snow will retreat to only the higher peaks.

The result will be a severe loss of snow for low and mid-level slopes, with gale force winds combining with the rain to ensure abhorrent skiing conditions.

Peak season delivers timely dump

Thankfully, temperatures will drop in the early hours of Monday as the first front sweeps in, and by daybreak, heavy snow should be falling across all major resorts.

Snow, and possible blizzards, will continue through Monday and modelling is tipping at least 20cm of snow in 24 hours, with some modelling tipping up to about 40cm.

The only downside to the system, apart from the wind, is the once polar air mass will be on a warming trend, so the snow quality for lower slopes is looking wet and heavy.

But the storm will not end after just one day. After snow eases late Monday, another front will follow and could deliver a renewed burst of 10 to 20cm on Tuesday and Wednesday.

All up, the event may dump up to 50cm on the higher Alps, which may set up the best conditions this season.