Southern Australia braces for a series of strong cold fronts

A series of cold fronts are expected to move across parts of South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and Tasmania over the next several days.

During Tuesday, the first substantial front is likely to sweep across southern Australia with damaging north-westerly winds. Gusts of up to and exceeding 100km/h are possible, particularly across exposed coastal location and elevated terrain.

Heavy showers and isolated thunderstorms expected during Tuesday, with small hail being likely.

Behind this initial front, a burst of westerly winds is expected, before shifting back to the north-west ahead of a secondary front during Wednesday. This is likely to re-enforce strong to potentially damaging wind gusts to parts of eastern VIC, southern NSW and TAS late Wednesday and into Thursday. Heavy showers and isolated thunderstorms are likely, along with the potential for small hail.

Western parts of Tasmania are likely to see widespread falls of 20-60mm over the next 5 days with isolated heavy falls of up to and exceeding 100mm possible, which may lead to localised flash flooding, creek and river rises. Very cold temperatures are expected, particularly later into the week, has prompted numerous sheep grazier warnings for SA, TAS and VIC with the loss of livestock possible.

Snow is possible to elevations above 700m in western Tasmania over the next few days, while further snow falls of up to 30cm will be possible across the Alpine resorts in Victoria and southern NSW through to the end of the week.

Image 1, EC surface wind gusts, 3pm Tuesday 17th July 2018. Image 2, EC 5 day accumulated rainfall totals. Images via windy.com