Severe weather update: Wet, windy, wintry weekend in the south

A wet, windy and wintry weekend ahead for much of southern Australia as a vigorous cold front sweeps through.

Taking a look at our satellite imagery, this low pressure system has developed in the Southern Ocean, with a cold front extending north.

That system is approaching the south-west of the continent today and bringing with it a cold and icy blast.

For the rest of Friday, the system will move towards south-west Western Australia and enhance our shower activity and bring some gusty conditions to that area.

We also have some ongoing shower activity for South Australia today.

Now on Saturday, this frontal system really gets moving as it sweeps across southern parts of Western Australia and into South Australia during the day.

Behind that system, we’re going to see gusty south-westerly flow, and we’re likely to issue a Severe Weather Warning for damaging winds for southern parts of the Western Australia coastline.

We’ll also see very cold air coming through in those areas.

We’re going to see showers, thunderstorms, the chance of some small hail, and also the chance of some snow atop Bluff Knoll.

We’ll also see our moisture increase ahead of the frontal system on Saturday, with moisture streaming in from the Indian Ocean and bringing rainfall through to South Australia and into our south-eastern states.

Our winds will also start to increase ahead of the front.

That will very much increase as we head into Sunday, and that front will move through eastern parts of South Australia and into New South Wales and Victoria in the day.

It’s going to bring with it very windy and wet weather and the chances of storms in some areas.

Now our strongest winds on Sunday are expected about the alpine areas of Victoria and New South Wales, where we’re looking at wind gusts in excess of 100 km/h.

We’ll also see strong winds ahead of the front, extending through the central ranges of Victoria and also further south.

Behind the front, it will also be gusty in our ongoing shower activity, with these westerlies through inland areas and south-westerly winds closer to the coast.

As we head into Monday.

This system will continue tracking east and eventually move offshore, but before it does, there are a couple of things to keep an eye on.

To start with, our winds are going to increase through New South Wales and we could see some damaging winds developing along our New South Wales southern and central ranges, with downslope winds extending towards the coast.

We also have this low pressure system, which will be lingering near Victoria and New South Wales, and some of our moisture and winds will continue wrapping around that system, bringing a continuous wet and windy day to parts of south-east Australia.

However, that system will move out later in the day and we’ll start to see an easing in conditions.

Now it will be a very wet period from Saturday and through until Monday, so let’s take a look at our rainfall totals.

Rainfall will be quite widespread across southern Australia, and particularly in our south-east, where we’re looking at widespread falls of 20 to 40 mm.

Now, some areas which will see even more than that will include the Flinders Ranges in South Australia, northern parts of Tasmania, southern New South Wales and much of Victoria as well.

Our heaviest falls of 50 to 80 mm over the period are expected through our Victorian eastern ranges and up towards the southern slopes of New South Wales, where we could see totals of 50 to 80 mm, possibly even higher.

With so much rainfall on the way, we are looking at some river level rises to develop later this weekend and into the new week.

This afternoon we are issuing a Flood Watch for parts of central and eastern Victoria, and we will be keeping a very close eye on our other south-eastern states.

Our cold air will bring some snow atop our mountains.

Now in the south-east the main snow day is going to be on Monday, but it’s important to remember that ahead of that snow, we’re going to see plenty of rainfall on Saturday and Sunday, which is likely to melt much of our pre-existing snow.

So it will be a little bit of a mixed bag for our ski resorts of Victoria and New South Wales.

Now, with such cold air and plenty of moisture about, we could even see a dusting of snow further north through our Central Tablelands of New South Wales and even up towards the Barrington Tops.

Large waves are also going to impact our shorelines this weekend, particularly in Western Australia on Saturday and then moving through along our southern coastline during the rest of the weekend.

We’ll see plenty of impacts with this severe weather this weekend.

We are likely to see wind damage to property and trees, those river level rises and some localised impacts from those large waves.

We will be issuing updates of our warnings this weekend as well as our routine forecast, so please stay up to date via the bureau’s website, app and social media.

Thanks for watching.