A cooler, rainy change is due to affect southeastern Australia in the next few days, but will only tease it with patchy rain and only slight cooling. The change will come in the form of a weak cold front linking up with a weak low pressure trough containing very little moisture. Apart from parts of the southern coasts and ranges the coming rainfall in South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland will generally be less than five millimetres and cooling will amount to less than about five degrees. This will bring very little relief to areas which have been experiencing a lengthy warm, dry spell. Much of the region is having its warmest spell this late in the season since the 1950s. Adelaide has just had its warmest week this late in the season in 128 years of records. Reaching 26 degrees today has taken the average maximum for the past week to 24.8 degrees, almost five degrees above the May average. The city's previous warmest week this late in the season was in 1934 when it averaged a maximum of 24.5 degrees in the week to May 25th. Melbourne has also set a new record, reaching at least 20 degrees for 11 consecutive days. The current dry spell has left large areas with little or no rainfall in the past few weeks. Receiving more than one millimetre in a day has not occurred in more than a month in western Queensland and parts of the NSW ranges and 10-to-20 days across most of the rest of NSW, Victoria and SA. Once the next cooler, rainy change goes through it won't take long to warm up and dry out. As early as this weekend and early next week we will see temperatures rising five-to-10 degrees above average under clear skies. The next chance of a decent rainy, colder change is mid-next week when a more intense front and trough move through, bringing the most widespread rain seen in more than three weeks. It should also drop temperatures to near-or-below average for the first time in almost as long.