Prosper in a dynamic world
Search

First cool bite of Autumn

The first gentle bite of autumn is making its mark across southeastern Australia, with Tasmania and most of SA and Victoria already having a coolish day.

While parts of NSW are enduring the third day of a low intensity heatwave – with most Sydney suburbs having reached 30°C by midday on Tuesday in the remnant hot air which was pushed eastwards heads of a cold front – it’s a very different story down south.

That front is well and truly working its magic in three states, with the whole of Tasmania experiencing temps in the teens or lower at midday on Tuesday.

You can see the contrasting temps on the satellite image below taken just before midday Tuesday. It also shows the speckled cloudmass typically associated with Southern Ocean cold fronts surging northwards towards southeastern Australia.

Looking ahead to tonight and Wednesday, snow is expected down to 700 metres in Tasmania overnight, so be sure to check in here on Weatherzone on Wednesday morning, as we’ll have our snow scouts out and about finding the best images.

  • For Melbourne, a top of just 18°C is expected on Wednesday, with similarly cool conditions expected across the state. Only the Mallee in the state’s far northwest can expect top temps over 20°C.
  • Adelaide and Canberra are both looking at tops around 20°C on Wednesday, while Hobart is looking at a max of 15°C, which would be five degrees below the monthly average.

Cool conditions will persist into Wednesday, with milder temps tracking as far north as the NSW Central Tablelands. Nights will also be cooler, with light frosts likely in the high country of NSW and Victoria.

Despite the burst of autumnal cool, this is a mostly dry front for the mainland. While showers are lashing Tasmania on Tuesday, only a light drop or two can be expected along the coasts of SA and Vic, as well as NSW and Vic mountain districts.

To find out about Weatherzones temperature, visit our website or email us at apac.sales@dtn.com.

Latest news

Satisfy your weather obsession with these news headlines from around the nation, and the world.

Habagat and successive typhoons trigger widespread flooding in the Philippines

Three consecutive weeks of enhanced southwest monsoon (Habagat) and back-to-back typhoons have flooded Luzon and the Visayas, grounding flights, triggering distribution power outages, cutting off transport corridors, and raising landslide risk across mining-dense provinces like Benguet and the Cordillera. The disruption is far from over with PAGASA expecting the monsoon to remain in place until […]

Australia’s Spring 2026 Bushfire Outlook: Increased Risk Across Seven States and Territories

Fire agencies, land managers and businesses are being urged to prepare as the AFAC spring seasonal bushfire outlook, released on August 19, 2026, warns of elevated bushfire risk across Australia this season. The outlook identifies above-average fire danger across seven states and territories, with conditions driven by a combination of elevated fuel loads, an El Niño […]

Businesses under pressure: how this powerful high will affect Australian industries

A very strong high pressure system centred over Tasmania will impact southern and eastern Australia’s weather over the coming days. How strong is this high pressure system? Mean Sea Level Pressure (MSLP) has already reached 1039.3 hPa at Ouse, Tasmania on Sunday morning, and is forecast to peak at 1041 or 1042 hPa on Monday […]

Northwest Cloudband looms despite sunny and dry outlook

A thick cloudband will stretch thousands of kilometres next week from the warm tropical waters off northwest Australia to southeastern Australia, bringing rain and low solar output despite a sunny, dry seasonal outlook.   The cloudy week may come as a surprise given the warm, dry, and sunny climate drivers currently in play – a very strong El Niño and a […]