Australian weather forecast for Easter weekend

PREPARE for Autumn — that’s the advice from weather forecasters who say the season is about to start flexing its muscles, just in time for Easter.

Autumn Camden, NSW Australia

FORGET about the steamy nights, and long extended summer days — Autumn is about to start flexing its muscles, just in time for Easter.

The heatwave that has affected southeast Australia for much of the year is well and truly over, senior forecaster Craig Burke of the Bureau of Meteorology told news.com.au.

A cold front approaching Tasmania from Good Friday will bring cool to mild conditions to much of the southern states over the Easter weekend.

That means showers in southern NSW, northern Victoria, and South Australia from tomorrow.

It was a similar situation in central Western Australia. “That’s in response to an upper level system in the eastern Indian Ocean and we’ll see that weather deteriorate over the weekend. That means from Geraldton all the way south of Perth there will be periods of rain and even isolated thunderstorms,” Mr Burke said.

It will be a different story in the interior of the country where a ridge of high pressure will bring stable conditions. In Northern Australia, temperatures are likely to be above average, he said, while Queensland’s weather is forecast to be typical for this time of the year, although “showers and storms” will build from Easter Saturday.

That weather is likely to extend into northern NSW.

The good news is “there’s not going to be a huge amount of rainfall associated with it though”.

There will be showers over Easter for most states.

Mr Burke said our holiday weekend weather could be summarised as “cool to mild in southern states, wet in the west, and unsettled from southern Queensland downwards.”

But that is no surprise really given the time of year.

“March is a transitional month weatherwise. It’s the first month officially of Autumn so from a temperature perspective it’s going to be fairly cool and mild across the bottom half of the country but above average in the Territory and northern part of Western Australia. That’s not a surprise.”

Since the strong cold front swept through last Friday there had been a “dramatic” drop in temperatures, especially at night.

“We actually had a heatwave in southeast Australia leading to that. But there will be nothing too exceptional this easier weekend.”

In a sense Autumn is about to make a belated start.

“That’s fair enough to say that. From a tropical perspective cyclone season still extends through to the end of April. So it’s possible we could get another burst late in the season.”

Originally published as Australian weather forecast for Easter weekend