The AFL Grand Final is looking quite good!

When a stadium seats 100,000 fans, features a big name music act, involves countless people in the planning and delivery of such a big event - and decides the ultimate winner of a huge year of football, the weather can have a pretty big impact.

Each year as footy finals season rolls around I'm asked "what's the weather for Grand Final?" by many, usually anxious, people.

Never mind that the question starts popping up a few weeks before the big event, and the weather pattern that will ultimately determine what happens on the day doesn't even exist yet.

Side note - no one can tell you with any confidence what will happen on Christmas Day until about a week before. Yes, people have already started asking!

I watch the Grand Final with particular interest each year, hoping that one day my beloved Saints will actually walk home with the chocolates, but also because the weather at this grand event can have such an impact on so many people.

Steady rain and 11 degrees? - that wouldn't make for a very nice day. Bright sunshine and 25 degrees? - that sounds much better, and would make the entire event so much nicer for everyone involved.

This year as the weather modelling started to show the first set of answers for 'what will the weather do', it looked like doom and gloom early on.

Southeastern Australia is in a series of cold fronts, and the timing in the modelling wasn't great for the big day.

But it's always better to watch the day of interest over the course of several runs of these models. See if the guidance jumps around from update to update, and hope that it quickly settles on a solid answer.

We've been lucky this year. The modelling quickly changed the timing of one of the cold fronts to Friday. That's perfect for nicer weather to settle in by the Saturday. Then the modelling continued to show this outcome as we got closer to the event, giving us higher confidence in the forecast.

Yes we'll have a burst of showers arrive on Friday afternoon, on the public holiday. But we'll take it if it means all of that clears out in time for Saturday.

WHAT TO EXPECT ON THE ALF GRAND FINAL LONG WEEKEND IN MELBOURNE

Friday: Warm and dry in the morning, rising to the low 20s. A burst of showers in the afternoon to early evening, with a cold change.

Saturday: Looking quite good! A cool and calm start (about 9C at dawn). Mostly sunny in the morning, some cloud building in the afternoon. A mild top in the high teens (around 19C), with moderate to breezy W/NW winds. There is the slightest chance of a very brief, very light shower hitting the MCG - but we would be incredibly unlucky to get this.

Sunday: Cooler (around 16C). Mostly cloudy. Possible light showers (it should be dry for the majority of the time).