Source : Perth Now news
Millions across three of Australia’s southern states are on alert for blizzards, damaging winds and “abnormally” high tides as a complex system sweeps the nation.
The Bureau of Meteorology has warned a complex low-pressure system could generate dangerous winds of up to 90km/h for parts of NSW and Victoria over the coming days.
While these windy conditions eased on Wednesday morning, they redeveloped in the afternoon and continued to roar through Victorian Alps, southern Victoria, and Central NSW through Thursday evening.
Meteorologist Jonathan How said these damaging wind conditions are likely to create blizzard conditions in the Snowy Mountains and Victorian Alps,
“We could see those damaging winds redevelop on Thursday night and into Friday, including for the Illawarra and also the Northern Ranges,” Mr How said.
The same weather system is forecast to be responsible for “abnormally high tides” across the Victorian coastline.
Coastal Hazard and flood warnings are in place over the possible flooding of low-lying coastal areas.
Sea levels remain high for central and eastern coasts into Thursday.
Flood warnings issued for South Australia remain in place as the deep low pressure system moves towards the east over the Tasman Sea.
“We do have a complex low-pressure system over Tasmania. We have multiple centres of rotation scattered across the south,” Mr How said.
Mr How said a cold front and an occluded front would bring widespread showers for most of the southeast region, including South Australia, inland NSW, Victoria and Tasmania.
The showers across the region would continue until the end of Thursday.
Ahead of the long weekend and the opening of the ski season, the bureau forecasted snow totals between 5-25 cm across the ski resorts.
Senior meteorologist Angus Hines said the winds over the alpine areas were quite strong, with up to 100 km/h wind gusts recorded on Tuesday.
“At the moment it’s very windy and we’re also seeing some snow showers,” he said.
“For anyone who’s on the mountains now, potentially some very bad visibility, which is often what you get when it’s snowing and it’s very windy at the same time.
“Perhaps it’s not the nicest out there at the moment, but as the weather system causing all the strong winds moves away later this week, it will settle down across those mountain areas.”
Mr Hines said weather conditions would improve by about Friday, leading to a quite settled weather,
“Relatively calm, quite bright, it’ll still be quite cool, but it should be a nice few days throughout the long weekend up on those mountains,” he said.
Heading into the weekend with the complex weather system active in the southeast, temperatures remain quite low across capital cities except Sydney.
On Wednesday and Thursday, Sydney’s maximum temperatures will hover around 19C-20C.
Melbourne’s highest temperature on Thursday is forecast to hit 14C with an overnight low of 10C.
Canberra remains cool with maximum temperature at 11C on Thursday, just 6C above the overnight minimum of 5C.
Hobart’s weather would be warmer, where overnight temperatures are at 9C before daytime temperatures of 13C on Thursday.
Adelaide’s maximum temperatures would hit 15C with overnight minimum at 10C.
Up on the east coast, Brisbane’s conditions are much warmer with maximum daytime temperatures at 22C and an overnight minimum of 13C.
Out west, Perth will have a Canberra-like chilly night with overnight low of 6C into Thursday while daytime maximum is expected to climb to 19C
Darwin will be the warmest capital on Thursday with maximum temperatures at 31C and overnight minimum at 20C.
