Cold front to lash east coast as winter bites

Temperatures will plummet across the country as a blast of icy air lashes the eastern seaboard, bringing heavy rain, hail and even snow to some low lying areas.

Perisher opened early for the 2021 snow season. Source: Perisher

A cold front will send temperatures plummeting across the country as a blast of icy air lashes the eastern seaboard, bringing heavy rain, hail and even snow to low lying areas in the nation’s first real taste of winter weather.

Weather bureau forecaster Sarah Scully said “strong and gusty” northwesterly winds were forecast to travel across South Australia and into Victoria on Monday before hitting NSW on Tuesday.

“On and behind that cold front we’re forecasting widespread showers, small hail, isolated thunderstorms and that cold front will move eastwards through Victoria and NSW during Tuesday,” she said. “Snow is expected to stop at low levels through parts of Tasmania, Victoria and alpine areas of NSW.

“And then later on Tuesday evening we’re forecasting a complex low pressure area to develop over southern NSW and that complex area of low pressure is then expected to move off the east coast of NSW where it’s forecast to intensify on Wednesday into Thursday.”

Ms Scully warned Australians across the southeast to brace for wet weather with rain forecast to blanket the east coast.

“We’re forecasting a band of rain to develop right along that eastern seaboard really stretching from Tasmania all the way up to southeastern Queensland through­out the week,” she said.

“It’s a cold pool of air so there’s the potential for small hail and thunderstorms as well showers and also snow down to low levels including the central and northern tablelands of NSW.”

Ms Scully said it was hard to predict which areas would be worst affected because it was “so dependent on the formation of that low pressure system”, but warned communities in eastern Victoria and southeast NSW to brace for the brunt of the rain.

“It looks like the heaviest rainfall will be around eastern Victoria, Gippsland and the southeast corner of NSW with the potential with that heavy rainfall for flooding,” she said.

“The soils are near saturated so any rainfall that does occur over eastern part of Victoria or eastern parts of NSW will have increased surface run-off and leave them more prone to flooding.”

Ms Scully said WA would not be spared from the worst of winter weather either, with a low pressure system forecast to develop off the coast on Tuesday, bringing a rainband inland on Wednesday and Thursday.

Though the icy blast will leave many shivering and reaching for an extra jumper, Ms Scully said it would also bring ideal conditions for the start of the snow season.

“We’re looking at snow dumps of between up to 50 and 70cm of snow just in time for the opening of the ski season,” she said.