Weather in Sydney and Brisbane: When it rains

In much of the Australian outback, seasonal rainfall is expected in the coming days.

Clouds are already forming over Central Australia and rain is expected to move east from Sunday.

The downpour could be “as much rain as for the entire season”, predicted Weatherzone.

The rain is due to “an unusually strong high pressure system centred in southern Australia, which will cause moist air to flow across Australia from the east over the next few days”.

This airborne moisture, which comes from the unusually warm seas east of Australia, will collide with a truncated low-pressure system higher up as it crosses the country.

The interaction between the low pressure system at altitude and the humidity will lead to unseasonably heavy rainfall in large parts of central and eastern Australia.

Weatherzone is forecasting rain of between 20 and 60 mm across South Australia, southern and western Queensland and northern New South Wales over the next four days.

Sydney, Brisbane and Perth will be the rainiest capital cities over the weekend, with showers expected. Melbourne will be spared from rain.

Thunderstorms are forecast for Birdsville in Queensland on Friday night and up to 20 mm of rain on Saturday.

Bourke, NSW, may experience heavy rain and wind speeds of 30km/h on Sunday.

Storm warnings are in effect for the southwest coast of Western Australia, and strong wind warnings are in effect for parts of the South Australian coast.

Up to 35mm of rain is expected in Perth between Tuesday and Wednesday.

The weather system will also cause a cold snap in some parts of the Southeast.

The small town of Liawenee on Tasmania’s central plateau recorded Australia’s first -10 degrees Celsius of the year on Tuesday as severe cold swept across the country’s southeast.

On Wednesday morning, that figure was surpassed at -12.9 °C, and on Thursday morning, Liawenee recorded the second coldest temperature in Tasmania’s history at a bitter -13.5 °C.

On Friday morning, however, it warmed up to -12.6 °C.

“Before this month, no weather station in Tasmania had ever recorded temperatures below -12.5°C in July,” Weatherzone reported.

“However, this limit was exceeded three times this week.”

“While this week failed to break Tasmania’s all-time record of -14.2°C set on August 7, 2020, it is the first time in the state that temperatures have been below -12°C on three mornings.”

Liawenee is known for its trout fishing, but has only two permanent residents, one of whom is a police officer and the other an officer of the Inland Fisheries Service.

Hopefully they are well wrapped up and have central heating or a fireplace so they don’t freeze.

Canberra will be the coldest of all capital cities in the coming days, with sub-zero temperatures of -3°C on Saturday and -2°C on Sunday.

It will be warmer in Hobart, but not much: in the Tasmanian capital, temperatures will range from lows of 5 °C on Saturday to 2 °C on Monday.

As is common in the Australian winter, you will need to head to the Top End or Western Australia to get enough sun.

Perth is expected to see highs of 20°C on Sunday and 21°C on Monday, but there will also be some cloud and rain.

Darwin will remain mostly sunny throughout the weekend, with highs of 31°C on Friday, 32°C on Saturday and Sunday and 33°C on Monday.

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