Cold in south, warm in west, dry in north

Australian Community Media

A high pressure system is pushing across the interior as a cold front moves over the south and east of the country. Strong to hazardous winds could hit parts of the east coast on Saturday May 18, 2024.

Transcript

00:00 Hi, it's Christy at the Bureau with your weekend weather update, focusing on the cold weather

00:04 over southeastern Australia, warm weather in the west and finally some dry weather in

00:08 the north.

00:09 So, looking at our synoptic pattern, the important thing to note here is this big high pressure

00:13 system sitting south of the continent, and that's the system that's going to give us

00:17 settled weather across much of the country today.

00:21 But in the southeast we do have this cold front.

00:23 Now, this system has moved over the southeast today and will continue up the coast of New

00:27 South Wales as we move through tonight and into tomorrow.

00:31 So as that moves up the coast on Saturday, we can see this strong area of southerly winds

00:37 pushing in behind it, and that's going to give us strong to gale force marine warnings

00:41 and also hazardous surf along the New South Wales coast.

00:45 We can also see that the showers associated with that system are quite coastal, perhaps

00:49 extending to the ranges but not to inland parts of the country.

00:54 As we move into Sunday, we can see this second front crossing Tasmania.

00:57 Now that's just keeping some showers and winds going but not adding too much in terms of

01:02 rainfall.

01:03 But this southerly surge continues up the coast and we do see strong winds pushing up

01:07 the coast of Queensland as well.

01:10 The other thing to note is that this system is bringing a strong southeasterly surge across

01:14 the interior part of the continent, and this is strong dry southeasterly flow, and that

01:20 does give us increased fire danger.

01:22 So we are looking at high fire dangers over the weekend through parts of Western Australia,

01:27 the Northern Territory, Queensland, Northeastern South Australia as well.

01:32 Also, as that combines with warm temperatures in the Pilbara, we could see extreme fire

01:37 danger and there is a fire weather warning out for parts of the Pilbara.

01:41 Finally, we have this cold front approaching the southwest.

01:44 Unfortunately, the high is going to block that, so it will slide southwards, maybe just

01:49 a couple of showers reaching the southwest coast of WA early next week.

01:55 So looking at our maximum temperatures, the first thing that jumps out is this cold air

01:59 over the southeast.

02:00 12 degrees for Hobart for maximum tomorrow, 13 in Canberra, 14 in Melbourne.

02:05 Now with all this cold air, we could see snow down to 500 metres over Tasmania and also

02:10 maybe some snow along the Alps in Victoria and the snowy mountains in New South Wales.

02:16 But we do maintain heat along the west coast, 29 degrees in Perth.

02:21 Now this could be the sixth day in a row above 28 degrees, which would be record breaking

02:25 for May for Perth, so a warm spell over there.

02:29 But as we move into Sunday, we can see that these areas of blue and green are extending

02:33 further north and west and much of the country is looking at below average temperatures with

02:38 this cold air behind the front extending right across the country.

02:43 Meaning warmth though along the west coast, still 28 degrees in Perth.

02:48 Looking at our minimum temperatures though, tonight we do see minimum temperatures down

02:52 in the low single digits, so a cold night tonight.

02:56 But the coldest air actually comes over us on Sunday and that's where we can see these

02:59 areas of light blue and white, that's potential areas of frost.

03:05 So we could say that extending across inland Victoria, New South Wales, even up into southern

03:11 parts of Queensland and into South Australia.

03:14 Also with that dry air pushing up into the north, we do see cooler temperatures, so 5

03:19 degrees overnight in Alice Springs.

03:21 And as we move into Sunday night, Monday morning, down as low as 1 degree in Alice Springs.

03:26 So the potential for frost extending into the Northern Territory as well as right across

03:31 the southeast.

03:33 And that's it for our weekend weather update.

03:35 As always, stay up to date with the latest forecasts and warnings on our website and

03:39 our app, and we'll see you again soon.

03:41 [Music]

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