Powerful winds and cold easing as QLD/NSW next in line for rain

A complex weather system is crossing the southeast mid week, then the wet weather focus shifts to Queensland and eastern NSW.

The southeastern system is a proper cold outbreak. 

As suggested last week, the trajectory is from west to east, dictating which areas see the bigger totals. In SA this area of bigger falls was in the southeast. In Victoria it is from the southwest up into the northeast. In Tasmania it is the west and north. In NSW it is the western slopes of the ranges. 

That trajectory means Victoria’s east Gippsland, the NSW coast, and Tasmania’s southeast miss out, as these areas are in the ‘rain shadow’ - the dry side of the ranges.  

The ranges of eastern Victoria and southern NSW picked up huge rainfalls, locally over 100mm, before it changed to snow in the alps. Now there have been snowfalls of 30 to 40 cm (and still more to come on Wednesday). The rain produced a lot of runoff, and now the snowpack is building.

The coldest air passes overhead on Wednesday afternoon and evening. This lets snow lower to around 800 metres, locally 600 metres (in southern NSW, and across Victoria and Tasmania). Most areas will be having one of their coldest days of the year.

If you’re checking your barometer you will notice it's a lot lower than we’ve seen for a while. This is a powerful system, and delivers the dangerous conditions associated with a huge pressure gradient. South Australia’s coast was hammered by abnormally high tides, and that spread to Victoria and Tasmania’s coastlines on Wednesday. 

Winds reached damaging threshold’s across elevated parts of the southeast, along with coastal areas and some isolated spots inland. The sheep graziers alerts are actually worth paying attention to, as it is the proper trifecta of cold, wet and windy - with each of those elements thoroughly met.

Next is a stretch of cold nights under a high - and the location of this high has a big impact on weather conditions further north.

It’s in the perfect spot to let a trough form over the eastern states, and moist winds will produce rain over the weekend in eastern Queensland and coastal NSW.

Then a low may form off the NSW coast next week - and if it’s close enough to the coast then that’s our next area of wild weather.