Monday morning's grey drizzly skies will usher in a warmer than average work week, before a turn for the chilly on Friday.

Weather-related disasters in the past two decades have killed more than 600,000 people and inflicted economic losses estimated at trillions of dollars, the United Nations said Monday, warning that the frequency and impact of such events was set to rise.

As of 9am on Friday, Melbourne was the hottest capital city in Australia. And that's not about to change.

Sydney is in for another scorcher on Thursday with the potential for 40 degrees over much of the city ahead of a gusty cool change from the south.

Queanbeyan and southern Canberra have been battered with a severe hail storm.

Parts of the ACT and Snowy Mountains have been warned to expect damaging winds in the early hours of Thursday morning.

Rivers and water catchments across the state’s east coast have not had enough time to dry out since the recent flood emergency, says the weather bureau’s senior meteorologist.

It will be a wet start to the weekend for Sydney with rainfall of up to 30 millimetres as a low pressure system from the north-west moves in.

There's good news though - it won't get worse.

El Nino assists January to have the biggest increase over the previous record for any month in a more than a century of records

You can hold off putting that extra doona on your bed for another week, Canberra.

Sydney's main reservoir will begin spilling on Thursday, leading to minor flooding downstream, the Bureau of Meteorology says.

Even Sydney's burst of early spring warmth couldn't escape the odd quirky political link.

An Australian credited with creating a technique that has helped reforest millions of hectares of degraded land globally has won the 'Alternative Nobel Prize'.

Gloucester Resources has dropped plans to appeal against a court decision that blocked its planned mine in part because of its climate change impacts.

Moderate global warming that has occurred as a result of human emissions has quadrupled the frequency of certain heat extremes since the Industrial Revolution, study finds.

Was this Canberra's final hurrah before winter sets in?

It seemed to sneak up on us, this storm that washed away houses and swept away lives, that devoured beaches and turned suburban railway lines into rivers.

Parts of Sydney are copping the odd isolated thunderstorm on Monday afternoon, but the storms are unlikely to reach the severity of the weekend's tempest.

Residents across an arc of eastern Australia stretching from Queensland to Tasmania should be on watch for more potentially severe weather this weekend as another winter storm loom, the Bureau of Meteorology said.

It's only the second July federal election in Australian history - but the weather signs are good.

Still plenty of winter left to get a winning picture in for your chance to win a prizes in the photo competition.

Sydney commuters are in for an easier run home as the worst of the wintry weather dissipates for the day - and probably the rest of the month.

Sydney, the rain is coming to drench your balmy spring, and it is set to remain for a week. But it will bring a much needed relief for allergy sufferers.

Air quality deteriorated to poor and hazardous levels in some parts of Sydney on Thursday morning as controlled burns gave the city the distinctive smell of burning Australian bush.