Australia’s southeast set to be hit by blast of cold, wind and rain

The first burst of winter is expected to send a wet, windy and chilly blast across the country over the next week.

The wintry surge will kick off in South Australia on Sunday night before the chill moves to Adelaide, Melbourne and Canberra.

Adelaide residents will need to layer up, with the forecast expected to bring stronger winds, rain and colder temperatures.

Rainfall is tipped to top 20mm on Sunday and up to 25mm on Monday, which is significant for Adelaide, given it’s a relatively dry place.

The cold, wet, windy blast will start arriving in Victoria and NSW from Monday through to Tuesday, with the country’s southeast set to shiver through its coldest weather so far this year.

“It does look like being our coldest outbreak of the year so far,” Bureau of Meteorology senior meteorologist Bradley Wood told NCA Newswire.

“Even southern Queensland will see probably its coldest temperatures of the year, so far.”

Adelaide will get down to a maximum 14 on Monday, Melbourne will reach 13 on Monday and Tuesday and Canberra will top only 10 degrees. Sydney is forecast to reach 16.

“This sort of thing is not extraordinary for winter. It’s just the first time for this year we’ve seen it over such a broad area,” Mr Wood said.

“They’re definitely not record breaking temperatures, but it’s the coldest it’s been for a while.”

The rainfall will spread mostly to elevated parts of Victoria and NSW early next week and could also bring snow.

Rainfall totals of 20-40mm are expected across the peaks, with the rain expected to start clearing by Tuesday.However, conditions would remain cool until at least midweek, Mr Wood said.

In a welcome respite for Brisbane, the rain which has been pouring down every day since May 6 is expected to clear soon.

More showers are expected on Thursday and possibly Friday, but then it will change.

“From Saturday, things will change significantly for Brisbane. It will be drying up on the weekend and into next week, which will be some very good news,” Mr Wood said.

On the other side of the country, the northwestern corner of Western Australia is in store for an unseasonable drenching.

From Saturday and into Sunday, a cloud band is expected to bring moderate to heavy localised rainfall.

The latest forecast comes as the Bureau of Meteorology on Wednesday released a formal record of the extreme rainfall and flooding in southeast Queensland and eastern NSW in February and March.

The bureau said several rainfall records were broken between 22 February and 9 March 2022, with more than 50 sites recording more than one metre of rainfall in one week alone.

“In the last week of February, parts of southeast Queensland and northeast New South Wales had rainfall 2.5 times their monthly average, with some regions recording more than five times their monthly average,” the climate statement read.

“After two years of La Niña conditions, the rain fell on saturated catchments, leading to flash and riverine flooding, extending from Maryborough in Queensland to Grafton in New South Wales.

“For many areas, this was the wettest week since at least 1900.”

The bureau said recent decades had shown a trend towards a greater proportion of high-intensity, short-duration rainfall events, especially across northern Australia.