There are no active warnings for this location.
Weather Maps
Daily Forecast
A high east of Tas brings cool temperatures over southeast Australia and showers in onshore winds about eastern NSW and coastal Qld. Low pressure through the central interior and inland SA brings isolated showers and patchy rain. Onshore winds bring a few showers to SW WA.
Latest Warnings
AUS
Latest News
Climate Updates
Latest News
Today, 12:44AM UTC
Cold, wet, windy weekend for southeastern Australia
A classic winter cold front will surge across southeastern Australia this weekend, with widespread showers and strong winds throughout the weekend, while snowfalls will commence in the alpine region later on Saturday. The engine of this system is a strong low pressure system centred over the Southern Ocean, closer to Antarctica than Australia. Winds circulating clockwise around this vast system will push moisture and cold air all the way to Tasmania and the southeastern mainland. Image: Precipitable water and mean sea level pressure over southern Australia and the Southern Ocean at 10 pm (AEST) on Saturday, July 11, 2026, according to the ECMWF model. Source: Weatherzone. The image above shows the expected position of the low’s centre a long way south of Australia on Saturday night. The main band of precipitation associated with the cold front can be seen crossing the southeast. Weekend weather for the southeastern capitals Adelaide will be wet and windy, with showers heaviest on Saturday and maximums around 15°C on both weekend days. Rainfall totals in the vicinity of 20 mm are likely from this event between Saturday and Monday, with heavier falls possible in the Adelaide Hills. Melbourne is also set for some heavy showers Saturday (likely later in the day), with weekend maximums around 15°C on Saturday and 14°C on Sunday. Melbourne could gain around 10 mm from this event, with showers persisting into Monday. Hobart will not be as wet as western Tasmania, where heavy rainfall is expected over several days. But the city should still see a few millimetres from this event. The maximum will be around 14°C on Saturday in the milder northwesterlies ahead of the front, then a chilly 11°C on Sunday. Canberra doesn’t tend to see much rain from these events, even as clouds coat the Brindabella Range west of the city, delivering rain and/or snow all day. But the city itself should still see a shower or two on Saturday evening and Sunday morning. On Sunday, expect a cold maximum of just 9°C. In westerly systems like this, Sydney tends to be shielded from showers by the Blue Mountains and Southern Highlands. Temperatures are also typically quite mild ahead of the front, but after a Saturday maximum around 19°C, Sunday will be a little chillier with a maximum of 17°C. Note that all of the temperatures mentioned are expected to feel much colder due to those strong northwesterly to westerly winds. For example, Melbourne’s apparent or "feels like" temperature is likely to remain below 10°C all weekend, while Sunday in Canberra will feel very close to 0°C all day. Image: The brown line is the apparent or "feels like" temperature expected for Canberra in the 7-day forecast period. Note how it is close to 0°C all day on Sunday. Source: Weatherzone. What is the snowfall potential from this system? We wrote on Wednesday that the early indications for this system were that it could deliver around 15 cm of snow to the mid-level of most ski resorts. That could now be more like 20-25 cm, with the potential for even heavier snowfalls at the highest elevations over the period between Saturday afternoon and Tuesday morning. For those visiting the snowfields, expect very strong winds in the alpine region, with the likelihood of chairlifts being placed on wind hold, especially late on Saturday and during Sunday. Image: An ice-encrusted snow gum in an Australian Alps blizzard of the type we will see this weekend. Source: iStock/Chris Gordon. This is not a system with a prolonged push of polar air that will linger over the southeastern mainland for several days, but there is a brief influx of very cold air expected early on Sunday morning, with snow levels dropping to 1000 metres or slightly lower. The snow level will start to rise on the mainland later on Sunday, with most resorts still enjoying snow showers on their upper slopes, while the lower slopes could see the dreaded "clear snow", otherwise known as rain. But overall, this will be a very welcome top-up for the Australian snowfields, just eight days after the (belated) first significant snowfall of the 2026 ski season. It will also be a particularly snowy system for Tasmania, with snow levels dropping to 600 metres in our southernmost state by Monday. Please check the Weatherzone snow page for the latest forecasts, live cam images and more. Image: Perisher Valley Graphs on the Weatherzone app.
09 Jul 2026, 1:22AM UTC
Frigid fog descends on Melbourne and other parts of Victoria
It was a frigid, foggy morning in Melbourne and many other parts of Victoria, and while the overnight minimums in most locations were unremarkable for July, one thing stood out: the persistence of cold temperatures well into Thursday morning. After an overnight low of 3.5°C, Melbourne was still just 4.5°C at 10 am as the fog which blanketed the city overnight struggled to lift. By contrast, Mt Hotham Airport (which had the lowest recorded Victorian temperature of -3.6°C overnight) had already risen to 9.0°C at 10am under bright sunny skies. At 10:30 am, Melbourne was still only 5.6°C. The satellite image below shows cloud (much of which is fog) and live temperatures in and around the greater Melbourne area at 9:45 am on Thursday. These were very cold readings for the time of day. Image: Satellite image with live temperatures at 9:45 am (AEST) on July 9, 2026, across parts of Victoria near Port Phillip Bay, including Melbourne. Source Weatherzone. Why was Melbourne so foggy last night? Image: Melbourne's fog was very slow to lift on Thursday morning. Source: @Unravelled_opinions on Threads. Fog is simply cloud that forms at or near ground level. When the air temperature cools to its dew point (the point at which air is fully saturated), water vapour condenses into tiny, suspended water droplets. This is cloud, or fog at ground level. Fog is most common on nights with clear skies and light winds when there is high relative humidity. Because of the strong high pressure system which has dominated eastern Australia’s weather this week, conditions have been clear, calm and cold over Victoria, Tasmania, eastern SA and southern NSW. This has enabled large areas of fog to form. Image: Synoptic chart for Thursday, July 9, 2026. Source: Weatherzone. The centre of the high pressure system in the synoptic chart above has been more or less parked over Tasmania for a couple of days now. It won’t head off into the Tasman Sea until the weekend when the next cold front approaches. Foggy streak to end as winds pick up It’s possible that Melbourne and other parts of Victoria could see one more foggy morning in this very calm weather week before the approaching cold front changes the atmospheric dynamics into this weekend. Strong northwest to westerly winds will sweep across the whole of Victoria for several days both before and after the front, and there should be plenty of rain in the mix too, with snow at higher elevations of the Victorian Alps. Image: Predicted rainfall accumulations across Victoria until the evening of Wednesday, July 15, 2026. Note that 1 mm of rain = approximately 1 cm of snow when snow settles at higher elevations. Source: Weatherzone.
09 Jul 2026, 12:32AM UTC
How to read weather radar images (and why it matters)
Radar images are one of the most useful features in modern weather apps and knowing how to interpret radar images is a skill that anyone can learn and everyone should have. What is radar? Radar stands for ‘radio detection and ranging’ and it refers to a system that uses pulses of radio waves to detect objects in the sky. A radar tower sends radio waves out into the atmosphere in short pulses and when these pulses hit objects in the sky, such as water particles, they bounce back towards the radar as ‘echoes’. The strength of these echoes and the time they take to return to the radar tower is then used to calculate what the object is and how far away it is from the radar site. Weather radars are primarily used to detect hydrometeors (water-based particles in the atmosphere), which include rain, hail and snow. However, they can also be used to detect wind and other small objects, including insects and birds. Image: Radar on the Weatherzone app showing rainfall over Vic and NSW on Monday, June 29, 2026. Source: Weatherzone. Types of radar images Modern weather apps typically feature two main types of radar imagery: Reflectivity (precipitation) – used to show rain, hail and snow. This is the most common type of radar imagery that you see on apps. Velocity (wind) – used to show wind speed and direction. Available in some apps and typically shows wind in two colours, one colour for air moving towards the radar site and another colour for air moving away from the radar site. Colour intensity usually correlates to wind speed in these images. Some weather radars also feature a technology called dual-polarisation, which uses both horizontal and vertical pulses to provide more detailed information about precipitation type and intensity. Most modern radars complete one full series of scans every 5 minutes, meaning you will usually be able to see radar images at 5-minute intervals once they arrive on your phone or computer screen. Why is radar useful? Radar is a weather observation, meaning it shows rainfall that is occurring in near real-time. This is different to a rainfall forecast, which uses powerful computer models to predict where and how much rain will fall. Radar images let you keep track of rain that is falling in your region. By viewing multiple radar images in a sequence, you can track rainfall and thunderstorms and find out where they are moving and how intense they are. Image: Radar image (reflectivity) on the Weatherzone website. Source: Weatherzone. How to use weather radar images You can find radar images on most modern weather apps and websites, including Weatherzone. Some apps even specialise in radar images and offer more complex data. Some tips on interpreting weather radar include: Understand the colour scale, as this generally represents precipitation intensity. View multiple radar images in an animated sequence. This helps determine in which direction and how fast rain or storms are moving. Note how rain or storm cells are changing between each image. This can help determine if it is getting more intense or decaying. Check the time of the latest radar image being displayed. Most radar images update every 5 minutes, but there are also a few minutes of processing time before the latest image becomes available. This means the latest radar image might be around 10 minutes old by the time you see it. Very small water droplets can be difficult to detect with radar technology, so you might not be able to see drizzle on a radar image. Radar images can sometimes show things that are not precipitation. These can include insects, birds and aircraft. False echoes can also be caused by technical problems with the radar. The more you use radar imagery, the more obvious these erroneous echoes will be.