A pool of cold polar air will cause temperatures to plummet across southeastern Australia next week, delivering a burst of wintry weather and widespread snow in multiple states.

A large mass of cold air will move up from the Southern Ocean early next week and pass over Australia's southern and southeastern states between Monday and Saturday.

The frigid air mass will strike southern districts of Western Australia and South Australia on Monday, before spreading over Tasmania, Victoria, NSW, the ACT, southern Queensland and the southern NT on Tuesday and Wednesday.

This slow-moving pool of cold air could linger over southeastern Australia until about Friday or Saturday.

Image: Cold air could be covering a large area of Australia by the middle of next week. This image shows the forecast 850 hPa temperature, wind and height on Wednesday night according to the ECMWF-HRES model.

While there is still some uncertainty around how the weather will respond to this slow-moving polar air mass, there are some things that we can predict already:

• It's going to be cold across southeastern Australia for several days, likely the coldest weather so far this year in some places.
• Snow will fall in the alps and there's a good chance of snow settling outside the alps in Victoria and NSW in the middle of next week.
• Rain, thunderstorms and hail will develop in multiple states.
• A low-pressure system will develop near the ground in response to the upper-level pool of cold air, causing cold and blustery winds in multiple states.
• Heavy rain could cause localised areas of flooding, but it's too early to know when and where this will occur.

More accurate information will become available over the next several days, so keep checking the latest weather news on our app and website for more details.