Let me take you through an update on what we can expect from that cool change today.
Taking a look first of all at our satellite imagery, we can see a band of cloud attached to the cold front. The cold front brushed parts of southern South Australia early this morning, including the Eyre Peninsula and Kangaroo Island. As of 10:00 Central Standard Time, it made its way through the Adelaide metro area, with winds shifting around from a northerly to a much cooler southerly.
Today we are likely to see very hot conditions pushing through the rest of the south-east ahead of this change. Adelaide did reach a maximum temperature of about 29 °C at 8:00 this morning. But now that the southerly has come through, we are expecting milder conditions for the rest of the day.
However, the same cannot be said for Victoria and Tasmania. In Victoria, temperatures are still expected to reach the mid to high thirties in many areas, including 36 °C in the Melbourne CBD. Even in Tasmania, Hobart is forecast to see a top of 32 °C today.
The hot weather, combined with windy conditions ahead of the front, is driving elevated fire danger ratings. We have High Fire Danger through parts of central and south-east South Australia, much of Victoria, Tasmania and even parts of south-east New South Wales, including the ACT.
But it is the orange areas on this map that we really need to watch. Those show the Extreme Fire Danger ratings. For Victoria, that includes the Wimmera and South West districts, the North Central and Central districts and West and South Gippsland. It is those areas that may see the most dangerous fire weather conditions through the course of today as this front moves through.
As mentioned, the cold front has already made its way through the Adelaide area. We are likely to see it clearing south-east South Australia and moving into south-western Victoria through the middle part of today, likely reaching Warrnambool by about 1:00 or 2:00 pm.
From there, it is likely to reach Horsham by about 3:00 or 4:00 pm, the Geelong area by around 4:00 or 5:00 pm, and eventually make its way towards the Melbourne metro area by 5:00 or 6:00 pm tonight.
Winds are likely to get quite strong and gusty ahead of and with this change, shifting around from those hot north-westerlies to much milder west to south-westerlies.
Later in the evening, we will see the cold front making its way across Gippsland, bringing that cooler change to the far eastern parts of Victoria in the overnight period.
We will see some showers and thunderstorms moving through with this cold front. Generally, rainfall totals will be low to locally moderate, but thunderstorms could bring some higher rainfall totals.
Taking a look at today's updated thunderstorm forecast map, we can see that storms are possible across much of central and south-east South Australia, much of western and central Victoria and throughout Tasmania.
For many of these areas, non-severe thunderstorms are what we are expecting. But where we see yellow on the map, that is where we could see potentially severe thunderstorms. Today they have the risk of bringing damaging wind gusts and locally heavy falls. As we can see from the map, that does include parts of the Melbourne metro area through the course of today.
Those storms are most likely as this change moves through later this afternoon or early this evening. In the meantime, we could even see showers bringing gusty winds at times, so it is a good idea to keep an eye on the radar throughout the day.
As always, you can find the latest forecasts and warnings via the Bureau's website, the BOM Weather app and our social media, so you can keep yourself as up to date as possible.
Stay safe and we will catch you next time.
Video current: 11:30 am AEDT Tuesday 17/02/26.
