Damaging winds, snow and rain for south-east Australia

An intense coldfront bringing high winds and rainfall to move across the country, beginning in Western Australia on Thursday July 18, 2024.

Transcript

00:00A strong cold front is set to bring damaging winds, rain, hail and more snow to southeastern

00:05Australia from Friday.

00:07The Bureau has issued severe weather warnings for damaging winds, and these cover parts

00:11of South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and the ACT.

00:15And damaging winds above 90kmh do have the potential to bring down trees and power lines,

00:21so this will create dangerous blizzard conditions across elevated alpine areas.

00:25Winds will initially increase across South Australia's Matlofty Ranges from Friday

00:29morning before expanding to other coastal parts of South Australia.

00:33In Victoria, damaging winds are possible from late Friday afternoon about the North Eastern

00:37Ranges before extending into New South Wales and the ACT from Friday evening.

00:43And these warnings will be updated, so make sure you have the latest information for your

00:47area.

00:48And this cold front has already delivered between 15-50mm for Western Australia, and

00:53into Friday morning will race across the Bight, with strengthening north to northwesterly

00:58winds ahead of the system.

01:00It's expected across South Australia during Friday morning before extending into Victoria

01:04and Tasmania during the afternoon, and showers will increase across southeastern parts of

01:08New South Wales by Saturday morning.

01:11And with this system, we could see small hail across southern districts, and for Victoria

01:15in particular, abnormally high tides could cause flooding of low-lying coastal areas,

01:20particularly across Port Phillip Bay and Lakes Entrance.

01:24And a lot of this rainfall is coming across relatively wet catchments, and so in addition

01:29to current flood warnings, we may see new river rises, so make sure you have the latest

01:33information before you set out on your travelling.

01:36By Sunday morning, we can expect broadly between 10-25mm of rainfall across southern areas,

01:42but we could see isolated falls in excess of 50mm across the alpine areas, and of course

01:47much of this may fall as snow.

01:49So having a closer look at the snow forecast, we look at the snow level here, and by about

01:54Friday night or Saturday morning, we will see the snow level fall to about 900m for

01:59New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania.

02:02For the alpine resorts, that would mean healthy snowfalls, but for other low-lying areas,

02:06we could see snow flurries, including for the New South Wales Central Tablelands, and

02:11the Victoria, the Grampians and Central Ranges.

02:15The snow level will fall across northern New South Wales as we head into Sunday, and there

02:18is a possibility of flurries from the Barrington Tops up into the Northern Tablelands.

02:24So the wintry mix ahead for much of south-eastern Australia, with damaging winds, rain and hail.

02:29Be sure you have the latest information from the Bureau's website and our social media,

02:33and please stay safe.