Cold Front Hits Southern Aus With Damaging Winds

Now, over the next few hours as the front moves through, the risk of damaging winds is really focused about that south-west corner. South-west of a line from Lancelin down to Albany or so, but certainly including the Perth metro area. Damaging winds are most likely with thunderstorms but they can't be ruled out away from thunderstorms either.

As we go through today, particularly into this afternoon, we're going to see the risk of damaging winds extending across the rest of our warning area. So that includes the Great Southern, the Central Wheatbelt and remaining southern and coastal districts.

Now, let's take a look at how those winds are going to play out now. I'm looking above the surface just to show you how vigorous this cold front is as it moves through. We've got the strong winds ahead of the front and wrapping around the system.

So the focus for the strong winds is really through the south-west this morning. But as we move through the day today, we are going to see those winds pushing further across those southern parts of Western Australia. Extreme fire dangers for the south interior and Eucla districts ahead of the front and behind the front we're moving into that more south-westerly flow.

Of course, we're expecting showers and thunderstorms with this front as well, mainly focused through the south-west. We are going to see cooler air moving in behind the front, too, with the risk of small hail across the south coast from later today. The strong south to south-westerly winds pushing up behind the front are also going to bring large waves to the west coast from later today.

In anticipation of that risk, we do have a coastal hazard warning current for damaging surf and it covers the coast between Geraldton and Bunbury. Now in that area we could see damaging surf and large waves, bringing a significant beach erosion risk from later this afternoon all the way through until around tomorrow afternoon. So for south-west Western Australia, the risk is really today into tomorrow.

But how will things play out for the south-east? Well, let's return to our winds and zoom out to the south-east of the country. Here we are starting on Monday morning. We can see that the cold front is moving across the Bight, already ramping up the winds through parts of South Australia, starting to ramp them up through Victoria and Tasmania as well.

The cold front will sweep through during Monday, pushing that wind risk into parts of New South Wales. A follow up system will brush across Tasmania into Tuesday, but by and large through the later part of Tuesday into Wednesday, we're returning to more settled conditions across the south-east. But certainly for that Monday period we have already issued severe weather warnings for damaging winds in anticipation of those strong winds moving through.

Now at the moment they cover parts of South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania. But later today we may see them extending into parts of south-east New South Wales as well.

Now a couple of things to point out, in South Australia certainly our warning covers parts of the Yorke Peninsula, the Fleurieu Peninsula. It doesn't yet include the Adelaide metro area, but it does include the Mount Lofty Ranges.

For Victoria, a warning is mainly covering elevated parts of the state and the Otway Ranges, but it does include parts of the Melbourne metro area for tomorrow as well.

In Tasmania the risk is across central and eastern areas, but the strongest winds are most likely about exposed elevated parts in the south. Now any of these areas of damaging winds, we are likely to see damage to trees and property as this cold front moves through.

Now that's in those wind warning areas but also associated with any thunderstorms that do move through. We could also see hazardous driving conditions across the south over the next few days as debris moves over the roads or dangerous cross winds develop. For some of our agricultural areas we could also see impacts for plants and growing. This is more pertinent for parts of Western Australia.

Now, certainly this cold front is more of a wind story as it moves across the country. But let's take a quick look at our rainfall over the next few days as well. From midnight last night all the way up to 8:00 on Wednesday morning Eastern Standard Time. You can see that most parts of southern Australia are really looking at these blue green colours.

That means rainfall accumulations generally less than ten millimetres. But some areas may see slightly more moderate accumulations, including the south-west coast of Western Australia through some elevated parts of South Australia and Victoria and certainly through western Tasmania as well.

Really our focus is on the winds over the next few days. We are looking at a little bit of rain but it's not going to be a very wet cold front compared to some of the other ones we've seen across winter and through the start of spring.

So with that wind risk ongoing across the next couple of days, make sure you stay on top of the latest forecasts and warnings via the Bureau's website, the BOM weather app and via our social media. Stay safe and we'll catch you next time.