‘Polar surge’ headed towards Australia

A major cold weather system will sweep across the southeast of Australia over the weekend, bringing heavy rain, damaging winds and snow.

A major cold weather system – dubbed a “polar surge” – is forecast to sweep across the south and southeast of Australia over the weekend, bringing heavy rain, damaging winds and snow.

Sky News Weather’s chief meteorologist Tom Saunders said that during the weekend the polar front will sweep north, hitting Western Australia first before moving east.

“This is a big one,” he said. “It’s a major cold outbreak that will sweep across the southeast of the nation early next week.”

He said the polar surge will result in showers for the south coast of WA and strong southerly winds, that will move eastwards across South Australia.

By Monday and Tuesday, the system will loom over almost all of southeast Australia, bringing widespread showers. Mr Saunders warned there could be hail and thunder in parts of Victoria and NSW.

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The major weather system will sweep across the south of the nation over the weekend. Picture: Sky News Weather

Between late Sunday and Tuesday, the system is forecast to bring strong to gale-force winds across the two states and Tasmania.

“We’re likely to have severe weather warnings for damaging wind gusts for parts of the coast and the ranges during that period,” he said.

“It’s a very wintry weather pattern with strong westerly winds and widespread showers.”

He said over 50mm of rain was forecast for the next seven days along the South Australian coastline, the Victorian coastline and ranges, and across western Tasmania.

“And, it’s not just rain,” Mr Saunders said. “There’ll be snow and some heavy snow developing in the alps and dropping below 1000m on Tuesday.”

He said this means it will reach the central ranges of NSW and across the highlands in Tasmania before starting to ease on Wednesday.

There’s good news for snow sports enthusiasts as up to half a metre of fresh snow is forecast to be dumped in the alps, and because it is so late in autumn it should be cold enough in the coming weeks that it forms a decent winter snow base.

Up to half a metre of snow is predicted to fall in alpine regions. Picture: Sky News Weather

La Niña to last until August and spring

The cold front comes as wet weather is forecast to hit Australia and the southern hemisphere, with another weather system bringing more rain into winter and spring.

Recent research suggests there’s a “high probability” (62 per cent) of La Niña, which began more than 18 months ago, continuing into June and August, with a 55 to 60 per cent chance of the event lasting into the spring.

This means Australia could continue being lashed by above-average rains, the likes of which have caused disastrous flooding in NSW and Queensland.

It would be only the fourth triple La Nina observed since 1900, and the first time the phenomenon had occurred in 22 years.

– with Jessica Wang