Cold, wet and windy for south-east Australia

Australian Community Media

Winter has arrived with severe weather warnings in place for parts of Victoria, with gusts of up to 90km/hr expected.

Transcript

00:00It's shaping up to be a cold, wet, windy and snowy long weekend across southeast Australia

00:05as a number of weather systems move through. First, let's have a look at the warnings that

00:09are current. And we do have a severe weather warning for damaging winds covering parts of

00:13coastal and elevated Victoria. This includes Otway Ranges, parts of the Mornington Peninsula

00:18and the central and eastern ranges of Victoria. On Friday, damaging northwesterly winds will

00:24develop with gusts in excess of 90 kilometres an hour. And this warning area does not include

00:28Melbourne itself, but it will be a very windy day across the city. These damaging winds will ease

00:33from the west on Friday night, but then on Saturday, we may see another burst of very strong

00:38to damaging winds develop. And for these, we may be issuing further severe weather warnings. This

00:43may include for parts of South Australia and Western Victoria, again across southern and eastern Victoria,

00:48and also for parts of southern and eastern New South Wales. So if you're in any of these areas over

00:54the coming days, make sure you have the latest warnings for your area. So let's have a look

00:58at what's actually causing this. On Thursday afternoon, we can see a cold front moving

01:03through the Bight. That's pushing strong winds ahead of that and showers across South Australia.

01:08And those are due in Adelaide late on Thursday night. And then on Friday, we do see this cold front

01:13continuing to push towards the east, showers building across Victoria and Tasmania. And we will

01:19see some very vigorous winds behind this cold front itself. But by night time, this cold front will

01:23gradually start to slip towards the south. On Saturday, we see a second stronger cold front,

01:28moving up from the Southern Ocean. And this will be associated with another burst of very vigorous

01:33winds, as well as local hail, thunder, snow across the Alps, and showers all the way up into southern

01:39parts of New South Wales. We will also see those very strong and gusty winds continuing about some of

01:44those coastal areas, as well as a low pressure system in the Bass Strait. And this will be associated

01:48with some of those higher rainfall totals. And then on Sunday, we see this cold front moving out

01:53towards the east, showers on and west of the divide for New South Wales, but still very windy

01:58across the south coast with that wind chill and those gusts coming through. And conditions really

02:03only ease towards Tuesday and Wednesday of next week. So we are looking at quite a few days of cold,

02:08wet, showery and also snowy conditions. Now, let's have a look at the winds. And having a look about

02:14one and a half kilometres above the surface gives an idea of what could be actually brought down to the

02:19surface itself. On Thursday, we see strong winds developing across parts of South Australia,

02:24and by Friday morning, really building across parts of central and southern Victoria within that

02:28severe weather warning area. The rest of Friday, we see those winds gradually easing from the west,

02:34but still very windy a lot at the coast. And then on Saturday, with that stronger cold front coming

02:38through, we see this pulse of very strong winds moving through South Australia, southern Victoria,

02:43and also eastern parts of New South Wales. And these strong winds will gradually start to ease from

02:48the west as we head into Sunday and also Monday, but still remaining quite windy right across the

02:52south east of the country. So having a look now at the snow levels, and we will see the most

02:57significant snowfall of the year so far. On Saturday, the coldest air will start to move through,

03:02snow level falling to about 800 metres in western Victoria, that does include the Grampians. And for

03:07Tasmania, around 1000 metres, even lower across the Vic and New South Wales Alps. And then on Sunday,

03:13we do see the snow level falling even further across Victoria and New South Wales.

03:17possible snow flurries about the central tablelands of New South Wales. On Monday, the coldest of the

03:22air pushes up towards northern New South Wales. We may see a few flurries about the highest peaks

03:27of the northern tablelands, but generally, the snow level is starting to rise again from Monday. So over

03:33the next three to five days, we could see those accumulated snowfall totals of between 30 to up to

03:3870 centimetres, especially about some of those alpine ski resorts. So with cold weather coming through,

03:43what can we expect? First, for many people, it will be about the strong wind chill, and we will see the

03:48apparent temperature fall to single digits for many people. With those damaging winds, we could see

03:52damage to trees and property, particularly about those severe weather warning areas. And across the

03:56Alps, we could see blizzard conditions with the snow, as well as very strong winds. And rainfall numbers,

04:02if you look out to see what we can expect out into Monday afternoon, we can see fairly moderate totals

04:07of parts of South East and South Australia, especially about Kangaroo Island and the Limestone Coast,

04:12and also southwestern parts of Victoria, in excess of 50 millimetres possible. For other areas,

04:17though, we do see areas of lower rainfall totals mixed in with moderate totals as well. So not everyone

04:22will see those high falls, but large parts of South Australia, Victoria, Tasmania, and southern New

04:27South Wales will see some very useful rainfall out of these weather systems. So it's damaging winds and

04:33also very wintry conditions start to build across South Eastern Australia as you head into the long

04:37weekend. It is important that you have the latest warnings and information for your area. You can

04:41get these on our website and our app, follow us on social media, and as always, please stay safe.

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