Warm and windy giving way to cold and wet, and repeat, as we ride the spring rollercoaster

In southeastern Australia its a warm and windy Monday.

Northerly winds are strengthening ahead of a cold front, with the potential for damaging wind gusts in parts of South Australia, Tasmania, and Victoria. Mainly about elevated areas, but we're still seeing big gusts about the suburbs of Hobart, Melbourne and Adelaide.

We have elevated temperatures - by as much as 5 to 10 degrees above average - but I have a few sayings that come out on repeat at this time of year! 'You don't get that much of a warm up without it being blown here' is very relevant to today. There is also a lot of 'temperature rollercoaster' activity, where it is warm one day and freezing the next, as spring is 'the fight between hot and cold'. This is all thanks to cold fronts moving through, competing with warm air from the north that is trying to surge southwards.

This week will be typical of a temperature rollercoaster in southern Australia.

Cold fronts crossed the west on the weekend, and cross the southeast later Monday into Tuesday. High pressure then moves eastwards again quickly letting temperatures jump up once again in northerly winds, before the next system reaches the southeast on Friday. The west has Wednesday as the main wet day, before it warms ready for the weekend - while the east is the opposite, some of the coldest weather is due this weekend.

While this fight occurs in the south, we'll have moisture pouring in from the northeast (generally north of Townsville) each day this week. Some of this moisture meets up with the instability in the south late in the week, creating our next widespread rain event.

This one isn't driven by a cut-off low so while the rain is widespread it isn't as heavy as our last major system.

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