A series of cold fronts crossing south-eastern Australia in the last week of winter are expected to bring flurries of snow across four states.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got a series of fronts and troughs that will keep sweeping across south-eastern parts of the country, bringing a burst of wet and windy weather,\u201d said Sarah Scully, a senior meteorologist at the Bureau of Meteorology.<\/p>\n
A particularly chilly front on Friday and Saturday was expected to drag cold air from down towards Antarctica and push it into central and northern Australia.<\/p>\n
Alpine areas in Victoria and New South Wales<\/a> were expecting between 50cm and 80cm of snow \u2013 even up to a metre \u2013 between Wednesday afternoon and Saturday.<\/p>\n Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\n Snow levels were likely to drop to low elevations by Friday and Saturday, reaching down to 300m in Tasmania<\/a>, 600m in Victoria and 700m in NSW.<\/p>\n Snow was forecast for areas in Victoria<\/a> including the western parts of the Grampians, the Macedon Ranges and potentially the Dandenong Ranges in Melbourne\u2019s east. In NSW, flurries were forecast in the central tablelands as far north as Orange.<\/p>\n Subzero temperatures were forecast across the Australian Alps \u2013 including Falls Creek, Mount Buller, Mount Hotham and the Snowy Mountains \u2013 from Thursday to Saturday.<\/p>\n There was the possibility of a dusting of snow in South Australia<\/a> \u2013 in the Flinders Ranges, about 200km north of Adelaide, and even the Mount Lofty Ranges, east of the city \u2013 something Scully said had not happened since 2022.<\/p>\n She said there could also be snow at the top of Kunanyi\/Mount Wellington in Hobart.<\/p>\n The first of the cold fronts moved into NSW on Wednesday, moving up the coast in the afternoon. Another followed close behind, pushing into south-western Victoria with a surge of strong winds. A smaller trough was possible on Thursday before a stronger front and potential low-pressure system on Friday and Saturday.<\/p>\n Between each front there were likely to be lulls with clearer weather, Scully said.<\/p>\n Overall, she said, it signalled a chilly start to spring for much of the country, including large parts of the tropics, with temperatures as much as 12C below average.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Breaking News Australia<\/p>\n Get the most important news as it breaks<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n In contrast, sea surface temperatures remained much warmer than average across north-east, south-east and south-western Australia.<\/p>\n Last month they were more than 0.56C above average \u2013 making it the warmest July since 1900. Globally, sea surface temperatures in July were the third warmest on record.<\/p>\n