A cold snap across Australia’s south-east coast will bring widespread frosts to large parts of New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania this weekend.
According to the Bureau of Meteorology, a cold front will bring subzero temperatures to more than three-quarters of New South Wales, “severe” frosts to northern Victoria and snow to western Tasmania.
A bureau forecaster for NSW, Andrew Haigh, described Saturday and Sunday as “probably among the coldest mornings we’ll get this winter”.
“We’ve got negative temperatures forecast a lot further west than they normally go,” he said. “We have very widespread frost. These are places that don’t often get negative temperatures overnight.”
Canberra is expected to hit -6C, Melbourne may reach a minimum of 2C, and parts of South Australia near the Victorian border will also dip below zero.
In Tasmania, the bureau and state police have issued warnings for ice- or snow-covered roads across large parts of the state.
In NSW, the bureau is forecasting minimums of -2C as far inland as Wilcannia, -5C in the northern tablelands and -6C in Cooma, closer to the east coast.
Haigh said temperatures on Sunday could rise slightly, but that frost could still persist from low ground temperatures.
“The temperature we forecast is measured two metres above the ground,” he said. “If that official temperature is two degrees, you can still have frost on the ground, especially in calm weather and not much wind. At the ground it still can be below zero.”
Despite this weekend’s frost, climate outlooks released by the bureau say this winter will be warmer than usual, with an 80% chance of higher than median temperatures in many parts of the country.
Dr Andrew Watkins, the bureau’s head of climate predictions, said there were “good odds” of increased temperatures and dry conditions from July to September.
“Over that three-month period, much of NSW, Victoria and South Australia will have increased odds of dry conditions – unfortunately including the Eyre and York peninsulas, where it is very dry already.
“There are similar odds of it being dry through south-west and western Australia, particularly the northern part of the cropping belt that hasn’t had much rain at all.”
On Thursday, the bureau said Victoria had recorded its driest June since the second world war, with only 11 millimetres of rainfall the entire month.
Watkins said the east coast could expect to see temperatures a degree above normal this year. “Around the Sydney region, you’re averaging just above 18C maximum around July, August and September, we’re expecting it to be about 18.5C or 19C.
“We’ll still get the odd cold front, the odd cold night. But in general we’re looking at warmer days, and generally drier nights.”
He said the bureau had reduced its El Niño watch to “inactive”. “Even though we have a bit of a dry outlook, El Niño is looking less on the cards than even a few months ago,” he said.
“Conditions in the Pacific Ocean have cooled down a bit. We were expecting to warm up. Luckily we’re not looking down the barrel of an El Niño.”
