NSW & ACT 7 day forecast 06/05/2026

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:01]Good afternoon, New South Wales and ACT subscribers. It is Wednesday, the 6th of May, 2026.

[00:00:08]All right, where is the cold air? Well, it's not far away. You can see here on the satellite imagery, the cold front is currently uh progressing northeast towards or coming into Tasmania and southwest Victoria right now.

[00:00:23]You can see all of this speckle cloud is very, very cold polar air mass.

[00:00:28]There's an upper-level mid-level low in there amongst that, and it has a very, very cold polar air mass coming up across Victoria tonight and into New South Wales from tomorrow.

[00:00:41]So, it will bring some showers and snow across southeast parts of Australia. Up here, we have a very weak trough at the moment through northeast New South Wales. Ballina jagged 90 mil last night or thereabouts, but falls around everywhere around there were much lighter. They just got under a stationary cell, but didn't land there. Lighter, patchy falls around 5 mil. It's having a go this afternoon, but I can't give you drop counts at the moment.

[00:01:07]Let's have a look at the current radar situation.

[00:01:11]You can see just up here near my pointer, there's a few light showers and maybe an isolated storm up there on the northern tablelands, but there's not much in it. Bit less than I had hoped for down there, but again, [clears throat] never drop counts. There's a bit of a better storm up near me at the moment. And down here, you can see the makings of that cold air coming in, that front coming in across Tasmania with a band of scattered showers and patchy rain now all the way from sort of Adelaide. We'll say it's just coming through Adelaide now into Melbourne and then heading for Hobart this afternoon. That will keep progressing towards the northeast into tonight and overnight. We'll run through some of the some of the forecast in a sec. Let's have a look at the cold pool. This is a 500 millibar chart about 20,000 ft. It really, really shows the cold pool up nicely in the low.

[00:02:00]And the polar air mass, you can see it coming in. That'll be tonight as it comes in across Tasmania and into Victoria and then across southeast New South Wales there tomorrow and the ACT.

[00:02:11]So, southeast quarter of the state.

[00:02:13]And then it spits out into the Tasman Sea and and goes over and gives New Zealand a bit of a touch-up with no doubt some snow, but I haven't even looked at the snow for them, but that's where it's going.

[00:02:23]All right, so this is typically what would come through on a cutoff situation through winter. So, to have one of these coming through now early May is pretty significant, and that's why we've been mentioning it a fair bit.

[00:02:38]We'll have a look now at the low-level cold air mass. This is is about 6:00 p.m. or about in a couple of hours time or about now, say. And you can see this is at 2,000 m.

[00:02:48]That that blue shaded area has very cold sub-freezing air at to minus six at very low levels. And as that moves through, as that cold air moves through this evening across Tasmania and and Victoria, it will bring showers with small hail. And then it that we should start to see some snow start to fall tonight for central Tasmania in this cold pool. And there could be some snow flurries there across southwest Victoria tonight above about 700 m. Same with about Tasmania about 700 m there as well or snow down to 700.

[00:03:27]Same with Victoria. And then the Alps, it'll start to snow on the Alpine regions tonight as that system moves through.

[00:03:35]I'm just showing you the cold air mass.

[00:03:36]Tomorrow, it reaches up across the southern half of New South Wales. There you can see that really cold patch of air.

[00:03:44]We could see some snow flurries there on the central tablelands tomorrow above 900 m and definitely some snow flurries across the ACT ranges and southern tablelands, southwest slopes of New South Wales and obviously the snow mountains, but we're going for about 27 cm of snow possible across the snow mountains and Thredbo on the peaks, but of course much, much lighter falls.

[00:04:07]They're just some flurries basically up here in the ACT because it's a bit lot drier atmosphere.

[00:04:13]That will bring much colder conditions as it spreads towards the northeast. But let's have a look at the rainfall accumulation over the next 7 days. This is Wednesday today to Wednesday next week.

[00:04:23]You can see that most inland areas of the state are looking dry.

[00:04:28]Then we have some coastal showers. These will most likely develop next week, early next week as the wind swing a bit more onshore because the falls tomorrow, and I'll show you those, falls tomorrow are very light.

[00:04:41]And then of course, you got some of those onshore feed showers there across southern parts of Victoria. But yeah, minimal, guys. Just some stuff along the coast.

[00:04:51]Which look cut off the coast and getting dry. Northern rivers have had some decent and mid-north coast parts of mid-north coast mid-north coast have had some decent falls recently. They're doing okay. Looks like a bit more for them, but the inland areas of state really suffer.

[00:05:05]So, I'll have a look at now. We'll skip We'll have a look today just quickly.

[00:05:09]That's where your showers are getting in, southern Victoria tonight. Edging into southern slopes there, southwest slopes in the morning.

[00:05:18]And then that little bit of chance of activity this afternoon in the northern tablelands this afternoon.

[00:05:24]Tomorrow, when the cold air moves through, we are looking at snow in those areas I've already mentioned, but look, the falls are very, very light. So, maybe just 1 mil there in the central tablelands, which would be a bit of snow.

[00:05:37]And then down here, even those Thredbo falls maybe have dropped off to around about 5 to 10 cm. I do expect a little bit more than that, though.

[00:05:46]All right, let's have a look at the winds. Here they are now. They're moving through Tasmania and Victoria tonight, and then they'll move into southern areas of New South Wales tomorrow.

[00:05:58]You can see here those orange areas are southwest to westerly winds, and by the time most people wake up tomorrow, they're going to be pretty much punching out across most of the state except for the northeast. Very, very cold air mass, significant wind chill factor of 5 to 10°.

[00:06:16]And top temperatures are really going to struggle. So, really cold day tomorrow being Thursday. In fact, I can tell you the temperatures here right now, and for southern parts, you're looking at, you know, 14 12 to 14 to 15° there.

[00:06:32]Canberra top of 10. Which is freezing or pretty cold. Parts of the central tablelands are tops of seven. And that cold air mass pushes right up across most of the state except for the northeast. Just clings in there. The cold air will arrive late tomorrow afternoon for the northeast. Do the maximum temperatures hanging there, but it will drop away pretty quickly on tomorrow evening.

[00:06:57]All right, now, what have we got?

[00:06:59]Friday, minimal. Minimal rain Friday.

[00:07:02]Minimal rain Saturday.

[00:07:04]And minimal rain on Sunday. So, then the showers will probably start to come back to the east coast on Monday as winds swing back around onshore. And that's where you can see that they do drag a little bit of moisture in down the coast on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday next week. All right, so that's where your coastal showers are coming. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, looks like they increase a bit Wednesday. And those falls there, totals there from around about that 10 10 to 15 mil down the coast parts parts of the coast the three days next week might have about 20 to 25 mil through various parts of the coast, but not doing anything inland.

[00:07:42]We'll track the winds. They'll be still there on on Friday. We are looking at frost potential there on the tablelands, northern, central, and southern tablelands and ACT. Frost likely on Friday morning. Those winds will pick up again, south, very cold south south to southwesterly winds across the state. Maintaining those quite quite cool to cold temperatures right across the state.

[00:08:10]In fact, a majority of areas are looking at 18 to 22° and then colder if you are along the tablelands and ranges at about 10 10 to 15. So, pretty fresh, pretty dry on Friday.

[00:08:26]And then of course, you got those frosts creeping in.

[00:08:30]Back to the winds quickly. Saturday, they start to ease. The winds start to ease, still quite fresh. Sunday, the winds easing back further, and then the winds will start to turn onshore as a big high builds down here near Tasmania.

[00:08:43]And it pulls those winds back onshore allowing for some coastal showers on on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. And you can see that those winds really start to increase as that high gets into the Tasman on when this time next week, which is a typical pattern.

[00:09:01]Those winds will really drive across and pull even more moisture onshore. That's why we're seeing some higher totals on Wednesday.

[00:09:09]So, yeah, cool cool change coming up.

[00:09:12]Some frost in inland areas on the tablelands.

[00:09:14]It's a bit of a taste of winter early, but things will warm up again a little bit after that before we get into some more cold as winter sets in. I do want to check I do want to come over here and show you that the El Niño weather pattern is developing. It's forming.

[00:09:29]It's starting to Excuse me, head up towards temperature thresholds in the Pacific Ocean.

[00:09:35]Right now, on the latest update, it is heading towards 0.5, which is a US threshold for an El Niño. Then you want to look at it holding that, which it's most likely to do.

[00:09:47]There is a 95% chance of it developing in the next 3 months. So, it's highly likely.

[00:09:54]And And the Australian might lag. The Australian is is won't lag by much.

[00:09:59]Point eight. Uh plus point eight is the threshold here in Australia uh for the for the Central Pacific to be above average temperatures and El Nino threshold. Then we look to see that it holds and maintains. And we look to see if the the ocean couples with the atmosphere. In other words, when the ocean warms up to above average, we're then monitoring the atmosphere to monitor it for changes to signify that that that El Nino um the ocean is having an effect on the atmosphere. So how there's various ways we do that, explain another day. But basically, what it does mean for New South Wales uh is that obviously there's a high risk.

[00:10:40]It's not always guaranteed. But there is a high risk of below average rainfall pretty much for the rest of That is really hard news and it's it's concerning news for people who are already suffering from dry drought rapid onset drought conditions. So northern especially northern, inland, and then central inland starting to go, and southern inland. There's there's various part of the state that are already suffering.

[00:11:10]This is not what we want to see right now.

[00:11:13]I hope somehow we get some relieving rainfall, but what it can mean nine times out of 10 an El Nino brings drier hotter conditions especially through winter and spring.

[00:11:25]So instead of getting your spring uh yeah, there's spring there, September, October, and it you can see that it could become a strong event up around 2°. Well, even 1.5 is strong.

[00:11:36]Plus 1.5. So the the chances are it's still going to be it's going to be there. It's most likely to be coupled with the atmosphere. And then we're just going to have to see at how much of a likelihood the reduced rate of rainfall is um heading into spring.

[00:11:53]These things can cut the rain off until Christmas. There's no doubt. You get patchy stuff from September, November.

[00:11:59]But we might be waiting until December to get any sort of decent rainfall across parts of the state. Um which would be absolutely devastating uh potentially for for areas that are already dry. So I'm we're quite worried about it. But anyway, there's not much we can do about it, only prepare. We're going to be monitoring this closely all every month and every week. Uh and we'll put more statements out about it. Don't forget, this is YouTube video.

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