Weather News

Melbourne freezing, Tassie snowing, Sydney basking

Anthony Sharwood, Friday May 17, 2024 - 15:14 AEST

A cold front is sweeping through Tasmania and southern Victoria, with cool air set to track further north during Friday and overnight into Saturday.

At 2:30 pm on Friday, conditions could hardly have been more different in Australia's two largest cities, while Tassie was plain old freezing:

Melbourne was sitting on a pretty miserable 13°C, having reached what will likely be Friday's maximum of 15.8°C just before 10:30 am.

Hobart was shivering through 11.3°C, and the temp dropped to a chilly 10.5°C just five minutes later, while snow was falling up on the 1271-metre summit of kunanyi/Mt Wellington high above the city.

People in Sydney who suffered through rain on each of the first 13 days of May were absolutely loving the mild, sunny, almost windless weather with a temp of 23.4°C, which had climbed to 23.7°C a few minutes earlier.

Here's the 2 pm snow cam image from the tiny club-run ski field of Mt Mawson, just under two hours northwest of Hobart.

Source: Mt Mawson.

Snow continues to fall this Friday afternoon to relatively low levels in Tasmania between about 500 m and 800 m as bands of moisture lash the state from the southwest. The heaviest falls of rain and snow are affecting mountain, western and southern districts.

In Victoria, a brief but quite broad band of showers passed through the metropolitan area and districts to its west and east just after 2 pm, leaving up to 3 mm in some localities even though the city's "official" station at Olympic Park has officially recorded no rain.

That band of showers is now headed for mountain districts, where snow showers are expected. Snow showers should also reach the NSW ski resorts later this evening, and while accumulations of only a centimetre or two are expected, a run of nice cold nights ideal for pre-season snowmaking will follow in the drier air behind the front. The ski season starts on June 8.

Meanwhile in Sydney, cooler air will arrive from the south overnight with showers likely, persisting into Saturday along the coastal fringe.

Those attending the Sydney Swans vs Carlton AFL blockbuster at the SCG can expect southwesterly winds to pick up during the match, however the full force of the southerly with cold winds and showers won't arrive until well after the match's conclusion.

- Weatherzone

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