Australian Weather

Today, 1:40AM UTC

Yet another late spring cold front is set to coat the highest parts of the Australian high country and elevated parts of Tasmania with snow this Tuesday. The loop below shows the speckled cloud pattern typically associated with a cold airmass with polar origins moving towards Tasmania and the coast of Victoria and southeast SA this Monday. Image: Four-hour combined satellite and radar loop for Tasmania, the tip of SE Australia and nearby waters on the morning of Monday, November 10, 2025. The cold, moist airmass will deliver Melbourne another frigid showery day on Tuesday with a high of just 14°C expected with apparent or "feels like" temperatures hovering around just 6 to 8 degrees for much of the day.  The unseasonably cold day Tuesday will arrive a week after the bleak Melbourne Cup Day public holiday, and just three days after Saturday's maximum of 12.7°C – which was Melbourne’s coldest November day in 80 years, as snow coated the ski resorts of Victoria and southern NSW for the second time in a week. Adelaide won’t feel the worst of the chill this week but will still be cool for this time of year with maximums around 19°C on both Monday and Tuesday (the November average maximum is 24.5°C).  Hobart can expect a miserable Tuesday. While the official maximum could reach 14°C, strong southwesterly winds and persistent showers will ensure a "feels like" temperature close to 5 degrees for most of the day, with snow falling on kunanyi/Mt Wellington to levels as low as 400 metres above sea level. In other words, the uppermost streets in Hobart’s highest suburbs could see snowflakes this Tuesday. Why so many cold outbreaks just a few weeks before summer? Cold fronts that bring snow to elevated terrain are part of the typical spring weather mix in southeastern Australia and Tasmania. That said, it’s unusual to see back-to-back cold systems surging so far north this late in the season. Image: Mt Hotham on Sunday, November 9, after the cold air that chilled Melbourne hit the Victorian High Country. Two main factors are at play. The first is the recent negative phase of the Southern Annular Mode (SAM), which tends to push Southern Ocean cold fronts further north than usual. The recent negative SAM is linked to the sudden stratospheric warming event that occurred over Antarctica in September, which you can read about here. READ MORE: What is the SAM? There’s also another factor fuelling the repeated bursts of wintry weather in Tasmania and the southeastern mainland. In short, it’s nodes of cold air. While a negative phase of the SAM tends to push the large-scale atmospheric circulation in the Southern Ocean closer to Australia, that circulation contains a wavy pattern of relatively warm and cold nodes. In recent weeks, the cold nodes have been peaking in the perfect longitudinal neighbourhood to bring a chill to the southeast. As another of those cold nodes arrives this Tuesday, we’ll bring you the latest on how low the snowflakes fall in Tasmania and the mainland here on the Weatherzone news feed. It’s also worth noting that there will be no significant heat rebound this week, as there was in Victoria last week, when many locations topped 30°C in the period between the Melbourne Cup Day cold snap and the weekend chill. Instead, this week will see only a very gradual warming across Tasmania and the southeastern mainland, with chilly minimums (Canberra could see frost on Wednesday morning with a minimum of 0°C expected) and no significant outbreak of heat on the immediate horizon.

09 Nov 2025, 4:56AM UTC

Parts of southern and eastern Victoria have endured their coldest and wettest November days in decades, with Melbourne itself measuring its equal-coldest November 24-hour maximum since 1945. The cool conditions across Victoria were associated with brisk southerly winds ushering in a cold airmass and the persistence of cloud and rain. Despite winds blowing across the bay, with water temperatures of around 15ºC, the mercury in Melbourne failed to rise above a bone-rattling 12.7ºC across the city – about 8-9ºC below average. The maximum was achieved right before 9am on Sunday, November 9th, with daytime temperatures trending cooler than nighttime temperatures as seen below. When adding in the wind chill factor, temperatures would have felt as cold as 5-6ºC at times during the day, which is more winter-like than spring-like. Image: Observed temperature, dewpoint and rainfall over Melbourne in the 24 hours to 12am on Sunday, November 9th, 2025. 'Nighttime' is shaded grey, with 'daytime' shaded white. Source: Weatherzone. The chilly temperatures contrasted with the previous day on Friday when temperatures reached 25.8ºC. Temperature swings are not unusual at this time of year; however, this one will remain in the memory bank for Melbournite's due to its extreme nature. The cloud was so thick over Victoria that, some parts of the state received no sunshine at all during November 8th, mostly confined to the Bairnsdale and West & South Gippsland forecast districts (see image below). Image: Total solar exposure levels across Victoria on Saturday, November 8th, 2025. Parts of the southeast received no sunshine at all (grey). Source: Bureau of Meteorology. The cold front responsible went on to bring some moderate to heavy rain to parts of central and eastern Victoria. The slow-moving nature of the front combined with some uplift over the elevated terrain brought high rainfall to some locations, with the highest 24-hour rainfall to 9am Sunday including: Mount Baw Baw, which received 77.4mm, the wettest November day in 18 years Yarram, which received 37.2mm, the wettest November day in 15 years Broadly, central and eastern Victoria received 24-hour totals of 20 to 40mm. Rain coming from multiple directions can be seen in the following satellite loop. Animation: 8-hour loop from 6pm AEDT on Saturday, 8th November to 2am AEDT on Sunday, 9th November, showing the rain 'swirling' through Victoria in association with a cold front and upper low.  A brief spell of settled weather is expected on Monday as high pressure builds from the west. However, another cold front is waiting in the wings and will spread north-eastwards through central and eastern Victoria overnight on Monday and into Tuesday. This will bring another cool and wet day to Melbourne on Tuesday with a forecast high of 15ºC. However, it will feel more like 8ºC at times when combined with the rain and the breeze.   The good news for Victorians is that temperatures will recover from midweek, returning closer to the seasonal average as the week progresses.