Unusually cold and rainy weather will impact much of Australia’s east coast today and over the weekend, with Tasmania already setting a new record overnight as temperatures dropped below freezing.
Metrologist at the Bureau of Meteorology Jonathan How told news.com.au that a weather station at Liawenee in central Tasmania got down to -14.2 degrees this morning, which beats the state’s previous record of -13.
The record is expected to be made official later this morning.
Despite this, snow has eased across Tasmania although icy driving conditions remain.
Mr How said unusually cold and wet conditions in eastern and southeastern Australia were expected today and this weekend, and flood warnings had been issued in parts of NSW.
“It’s generally colder than usual for this time of year for most of southeastern Australia including Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne and Adelaide,” he said.
Parts of southwest Queensland and northern NSW have already recorded between 20 and 50mm of rain overnight.
“Some of these locations have recorded more rainfall overnight than what they’ve seen in the past three months,” Mr How said.
“This is very good news for these communities as they’ve had a very dry three-month period and winter so far.”
Through the rest of Friday, the rain band will push further south into NSW and eastern Queensland and Mr How said it was likely there would be a further 10-30mm of rain through southern Queensland, most of NSW and much of Victoria and into southeastern parts of South Australia.
“Thunderstorms, particularly in northern NSW and southern Qld could bring large hail and severe winds this afternoon,” Mr How said.
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Heavy rainfall is expected to develop tonight on the south coast of NSW and this will persist to about Monday or Tuesday.
“We could see totals in excess of 200mm across parts of the south coast,” he said.
The BOM have issued an initial flood watch for the south coast of NSW and those in the area, particularly in far eastern Gippsland and up the south coast to about Nowra, are being advised to keep an eye on warnings.
“The area saw some pretty large rainfall recently and so the ground is still saturated and this rainfall could lead to moderate and possibly even major flooding.”
Mr How said Sydney was likely to see some rainfall but it would not be quite as heavy as the conditions further south.
However, it is likely the city will see large waves again that could lead to further coastal erosion.
It’s also likely that flood watches and warnings will be issued for far eastern Victoria.
There are damaging wind warnings for elevated and southern parts of the state but this doesn’t include Melbourne.
In South Australia, there are reports of snow this morning at Mt Remarkable and there is a chance Adelaide will also break its August temperature record.
The forecast for Adelaide is 10 degrees and this is every close to the August record of 9.3C, Mr How said.
In Western Australia, a very strong cold front is expected to slam the state on Sunday with heavy rainfall, strong winds and very large waves for most of the west coast including Perth.
“Warnings are likely to be issued closer to Sunday,” Mr How said.
In Queensland, rain is expected to increase with about 10-20mm in Brisbane but will then ease off tomorrow. However, cold conditions will follow in inland Queensland and NSW.
In the Northern Territory, it’s a sunny outlook for the week in Darwinwith temperatures averaging at a maximum of 32C, dropping to a cooler 18C in the evenings.