Jane's Weekly Update: Thursday 26th June 2025

This weekly update coming to you on a Thursday this week.

After a wild few days in the southeast, the big weather system has moved away over the Tasman Sea and high pressure is moving in calming things down.

Up next is a sneaky little cold front on Sunday/Monday that brings a light top up (and light snow top up for the alps).

This front has bigger plans though, with it's upper atmosphere energy going on to let a low form off the NSW coast next week. This is one to watch because, depending on where it moves, it could have big impacts for those adjacent parts of the coast.

Meanwhile, there is some out of season rain coming into Queensland again over the weekend, heading into the southeast.

The southwest is fairly quiet to end the week and over the weekend, before things ramps up again next week.

Looking closer at the low off the NSW coast. These are known as an East Coast Low (ECL) and they are very typical for this time of year.

We can get significant lows, that rapidly develop (known as explosive cyclogenesis, try saying that five times fast :) ), and if you are near or just to the south of one there can be serious impacts.

Our worst ECL's have sunk bulk carrier ships, and one of them was responsible for the Pasha Bulker coming ashore in 2007 (stands out in my memory as I was on shift at the bureau at the time).

Next week's ECL doesn't look too close to the coast at this stage - but as always, it is nearly a week away so if you are in the area please keep an eye on the latest forecasts.

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At this stage, Newcastle looks to be one of the most impacted spots, from Tuesday to Thursday. If the low comes closer than what the modelling suggests now, the rain and winds will increase. These can bring damaging to destructive winds, torrential rainfall, huge tides and coastal inundation, and hazardous surf... if they are right near the coast.

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For an in depth look, don't miss my video update:

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In this series I'll take you through the drivers of our weather, highlighting any changes over time and things to watch out for (generally every Friday). It covers weather elements like temperature and rainfall, and how they are driven by moisture from the Pacific and Indian Oceans, as well as bursts of energy from low pressure (SAM and MJO).

See and hear my commentary as I take you through the weather pattern's effects on our rain and temperatures in detail over the next week, with a brief look at week 2 and beyond as well.

Plus what is driving our weather in the weeks and months ahead, with the latest on El Nino/La Nina, the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), the Southern Annular Mode (SAM controls our weather systems), and the Madden Julian Oscillation (MJO connects tropical moisture to our weather systems).

I update this commentary each week, generally on Friday's. Make sure you are signed up (free or a subscription) so you don't miss an update.

Stay up to date with the forecast specifically for your area in our hour by hour outlook for the next 10 days. Download our app for iPhone and Android.

As always, you can see each of these graphics as soon as they update, as well as more information about them under our Rain Outlook and Seasonal Outlook pages within Jane's Update, along with our Snow Forecast in the snow season.