Frost and colder temperatures forecast for the Darling Downs

If you think this morning was cold it’s about to get even more blustery with negative temperatures and frost forecast for the Darling Downs.

OH SNAP: Time to rug up! Toowoomba’s two day cold snap is all due to some a number of wind cells coming up for the soother states. With front and negative temperatures forecast for tomorrow, now is a good time to get that heater running and a nice warm pair of bedsocks on. Picture: David Martinelli

As Toowoomba residents shiver through the blistering winds on Wednesday morning, weather experts have warned Garden City locals to brace for even frostier weather as the mercury sets to drop across the region.

Meteorologist Rosa Hoff from the Bureau of Meteorology said Toowoomba’s particularly blustery conditions this morning is due to some cold air coming up from the southern states.

“This is just helping to drop our temperatures down a bit and we’re going to continue seeing colder temperatures through to tomorrow as well and it’s likely that tomorrow is going to be even colder again then today,” she said.

The Bureau issued a warning earlier this morning to all Darling Downs and Granite Belt sheep graziers stating that the cold temperatures, showers and south-westerly winds are expected today and there is a risk of losses of lambs and sheep exposed to these conditions.

“It is of course quite windy today with winds westerly 30 to 45 kilometres per hour tending south-westerly 35 to 50 kilometres per hour in the morning then decreasing to 20 to 30 kilometres per hour in the evening,” Ms Hoff said.

“And when they start to get to the west, south-westerly direction they can actually funnel through the Toowoomba and Lockyer Valley and then toward Brisbane so certainly with Toowoomba being at the start of that stretch it can certainly pick up and we also have some quite windy weather above us in the atmosphere, in the upper levels of the troposphere which is also starting to impact our weather a little bit too.”

Ms Hoff said the windiest conditions today are likely to take place in the late morning before easing back a little bit in the afternoon, but Toowoomba will continue to see windier conditions through to tomorrow.

She also mentioned today’s chilly max temperature of 9 degrees and minimum of 4.2 is going to be good preparation for tomorrow’s bone-chilling minimum of -1, with conditions set to warm up from tomorrow morning.

“With the temperatures getting so low tomorrow there’s also a good chance of frost tomorrow morning which is likely to be quite wide spread but the warmth will start to increase during the day with a max temperature of 15 predicted so conditions will be a much more pleasant despite a very cold start to the day,” she said.

“We’re not going to see a very cold morning of Friday, with minimum temperatures back up to around 5 degrees before a lovely winter weekend with much higher temps on Saturday with a minimum of 10 and a high of 15 before a slightly cooler day on Sunday.”