Australia Weather News

Winter will hit Perth with force towards the end of the week. - ABC

A glorious, warm late-autumn weekend may have lulled many Perth residents into thinking the summer may never end, but it's time to reach for a brolly because the sunny, dry weather is about to come to a sudden halt.

The western part of the state will finally get a proper hit of autumn towards the end of the week, as a strong cold front barrels in from the west late Thursday or early Friday.

The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) is predicting thunderstorms and gusty showers with moderate to heavy falls from Exmouth all the way down to Albany.

Will it rain where I am?

If you live in Perth or near the west coast, yes, but falls will be lighter across inland farming regions.

"The west coast is going to get the most rain, we're expecting rainfall figures at this stage in the 20- to 50-millimetre range," BOM forecaster Linda Paterson said.

"We may even get some isolated falls as high as about 90mm along the west coast."

"As we reach western parts of the agricultural areas it's going to drop down to more in the 5-15mm range, and as you move further east into the 1-5mm range," Ms Paterson said.

"So unfortunately we're not expecting a lot of rainfall to penetrate right through the farming districts."

All up, BOM is expecting 20-50mm to fall in Perth.

So far the Perth gauge has collected just 6.2mm of rainfall this month and is unlikely to reach the May average of 90.3mm.

How severe will the system be?

BOM is predicting the system to bring some severe winter weather but conditions will ease through the weekend.

"It's quite possible that we will have damaging wind gusts up to about 100 kilometres per hour associated with this front," said Ms Paterson.

"It's possible we'll have some locally destructive gusts and that's where you see the more significant damage.

"We're expecting some heavy falls and even the possibility of some hail."

Higher than normal tides are also possible, which may cause flooding of low lying coastal areas.

Will we need to rug up?

Temperatures will be cooler during the day but overnight it will be warmer than it has been during the past week.

The recent run of warm days and cold nights were brought on by a high pressure system in the bight.

But as the cold front moves through, daytime temperatures will drop a few degrees, while overnight temperatures will rise.

In Perth, temperatures in the high 20s are forecast for Wednesday and Thursday, but tops are set to fall to the low 20s on Friday and the weekend.

ABC