Severe Winds, Alpine Snow & Cold Blast Hit Southeast Australia |Your Daily Forecast

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:00]Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Daily Forecast Australia. It's Friday, the 8th of May. Thank you for joining me for today's express forecast. Maya just really wanted to be involved this morning, so she's here to say hi quickly. Now, a quick note about yesterday's forecast. You may have noticed that the forecast was up early for members of my YouTube channel. It's $1.49 for the whole month, and it will get you early access to every daily forecast. And that is great for the early risers like me. So, if that's something that is of interest to you, there's no pressure. I honestly YouTube is free. It's free for everybody. If you want early access, and if you want exclusive videos that won't be available publicly, that's when you need to sign up as a member. So, I just wanted to mention that. Let's dive into today's forecast, which is an express forecast just due due to some time restraints I have this morning. The big story for today is this cold air mass. It's sitting over the southeast of the nation today, and this is especially for the Alpine regions. It's really got a significant early season wintery feel about the place. We've got snow continuing to fall on the ranges this morning. There are multiple severe wind warnings in place by the Bureau today.

[00:01:09]And that is because we're going to have some very strong wind gusts forecast for parts of the New South Wales and Tasmania this morning. Let's work through all of this right now. Gosh, I need another coffee. Looking at the synoptic setup first, we've got this strong high pressure system. It's sitting to the south of WA. It's continuing to dominate much of inland Australia. It is slowly tracking eastwards, it's really at a snail's pace. And as a result, it's keeping conditions fairly stable, largely clear across the interior. We can really see that as we flick onto our cloud cover now. The influence is really obvious this morning, cuz we've got much of WA, the Northern Territory, inland South Australia, also Western Queensland, all sitting under mostly clear skies.

[00:01:53]Really, there's only some patchy high-level cloud drifting through at times. However, hold on to your hat because as we move over to the southeast, things are looking much more dynamic. We've got this developing low-pressure system sitting offshore in the Tasman Sea this morning. It is very fast-moving. I will give it that. And it is tightening the pressure gradient significantly along our coastline. So, we can see as we observe from both the cloud layer and when we flick on to our wind gust layer, it's really responding to this activity.

[00:02:26]Uh it's driving most of the active weather conditions that we are seeing across the southeast, not only today, but for the next several days. So, let's start about um let's talk about New South Wales. So, right from early this morning, uh here west-southwesterly winds are very fresh along the coast and they are penetrating even further inland into the Snowy Mountains. And I want to show you this. Look here as we zoom in. This is the Monaro region of New South Wales.

[00:02:51]So, check out these wind gust speeds.

[00:02:53]So, we're talking around Bombala, Cathcart, Bemboka, Nimmitabel. This is my old stomping ground. I am from the South Coast. And the wind speeds here, look here, gusts in excess of 90 km/h during the late morning today.

[00:03:07]We are talking strap everything down at this point. If it was been night last night for you, well, I will pray for you. The southern southern and central tablelands also are going to be very gusty for much of today. So, areas around Goulburn, Crookwell, up towards Lithgow, all seeing gusts in excess of 70 km/h.

[00:03:26]Early snow showers, I mentioned this already, already falling this morning across the southern ranges above 1,200 m. We've got cold frosty conditions across the ranges, across the western slopes as well, and the adjacent inland plains. Showers and scattered uh scattered, sorry, through um here central western slopes, also the far south, not accumulating to high totals, but we will see some shower activity nonetheless. While in the northern and the central eastern regions, it's staying more dry, lengthy periods of sun that today. Also, daytime temperatures here, I'm not going to um go around the nation and cover all of our peak temperatures for today. We just will observe below average daytime temperatures today, especially on the ranges. Moving into the ACT, overnight temperatures have fallen uh below zero, so daytime temperatures are going to reach around uh let's just say low teens. Uh there is a significant chance of a or sorry, a slight chance of a shower as well, and snow above 1,500 m. So, patchy frost will take place across the ACT early this morning.

[00:04:29]Westerly and southwesterly winds also around 20 to 30 km. Now, let's look at Victoria. So, this is where the Alpine story has also been noteworthy. So, we've had snow falling above 1,500 m this morning. That will lift to about 1,800 m this afternoon. Very strong gale force winds once again, possible blizzard conditions about the Alpine regions, but it is easing through this morning. If you are anywhere near the high country in any of the states, um Victoria, New South Wales, or down into Tasmania, please take this very seriously. Uh scattered shower activity also is affecting areas or south of the divide, so that will also gradually ease and contract southwards through the day.

[00:05:11]It's a cool to cold day across much of Victoria today, fresh westerly to southwesterly winds, and that is also becoming more moderate into the evening.

[00:05:21]We see a very similar wind setup in Tasmania this morning as to what we just observed in New South Wales. So, regions such as the west coast, the Derwent Valley, gusts here are peaking in excess of 110 km/h.

[00:05:35]That is very significant and damaging winds for today.

[00:05:39]Showers are going to continue about the west and the far south of Tassie. Chance of a light shower elsewhere across the south, uh but the remainder of the state, it's going to remain relatively fine. Some of those fresh locally strong uh, fresh to locally strong southwesterly winds are uh, easing as the day continues. So, into Queensland, it's a dry and cool day through the south, the center, and the west.

[00:06:03]Scattered high cloud, patches of morning frost about [clears throat] the Carnarvon Ranges, as well as the eastern Darling Downs and the Granite Belt. So, just a cool morning there. Possible morning fog inland between St. Lawrence and Innisfail.

[00:06:19]If we head up towards Far North Queensland now, and especially along the coast here, it's also quite gusty. So, it's being outshone really by what's happening in the southeast, but along the coastline between Lockhart River and Cairns, we've got gust gusty southerly winds. That's hovering at around about the 50 km/h rate, and that is expected to prevail for much of the day.

[00:06:40]Now, just as those breezy conditions ease into the evening, we're going to see some rain and thunderstorm activity.

[00:06:45]It's going to drift onto the coastline here. Isolated pockets of more intense thunderstorm activity, and that's going to happen late into the evening hours.

[00:06:54]It will produce some noteworthy but patchy intermittent rainfall.

[00:06:58]Temperatures are running below average uh, in the southwest and the southern interior today. So, moving into South Australia now, isolated light showers are possible about the southern agricultural area and near the west coast. Uh, temp oops, temperatures below average as well. Fresh southwesterly and southeasterly winds hovering in this region today due to the way the air is moving around this pressure system.

[00:07:22]Okay, South Australia doesn't get too much air time today, I'm afraid. Into WA now, a possible light shower along the south coast between Denmark and Esperance this morning. It's just going to be light drizzle, uh, also affecting over towards Eucla, the southern goldfields here, southern interior, and eastern parts of the southeast coastal districts. And that's going to contract back towards Eucla uh by this evening.

[00:07:46]Then, we're going to have areas of smoke haze. That's going to happen across the southwest land division today. Please take care if you are sensitive to air quality in those areas. Just be mindful of that. We're going to have windy conditions crossing the southern Kimberley, Pilbara, Gascoyne, Central West, and northern interior through the day. Once again, outshone by what's happening in the southeast. Finally, into the northern territory, slight to medium chance of showers over the far northeast Arnhem district. Sunny conditions elsewhere, apart from a little bit of morning cloud in the Lasseter and uh western Simpson district. Really nothing too dramatic happening there. Uh moderate to fresh gusty southeasterly winds.

[00:08:27]Uh and then, they could pick up a little bit stronger at times during the morning, especially in the um Barkly district. Okay, before we go, I just wanted to touch briefly on the alpine conditions and the snow situation because I know this is pretty exciting for snow lovers just like me. So, following the cold front that passed through yesterday, snow has already been recorded in um much of the like snow resort areas. However, and it's going to continue those uh snow accumulations will continue through this morning, as I mentioned. Uh the official records, when I looked at this just trying to jot down some notes for myself, um no totals had been published yet, none that I could find. And I think it's just because we're outside of those resorts' official recording and reporting season.

[00:09:13]So, I'm sure by the time I hit publish on this video, all of that information will be online. So, what I'll do is I'll upload something onto my Instagram account regarding the snowfall totals, if that is what you're interested in.

[00:09:24]So, you can always head over to Instagram and follow me there. Okay, that's it for today. Stay warm, stay safe. Please check in on the Bureau uh the weather alerts and warnings page if you uh living in any of those affected areas today.

[00:09:39]Uh yeah, that's it. Okay, I've got to run. That's why it was a That's why it was an express forecast this morning.

[00:09:44]I've got a busy morning. So, thanks for bearing with me. Sorry about the puppy.

[00:09:47]I'm so glad you're not here face-to-face cuz the dog hair is just wild.

[00:09:51]>> [laughter] >> I've been sneezing all morning. Have a great day. Enjoy your What are we at?

[00:09:55]Friday? Yes, enjoy your Friday. We're almost at the weekend. Thanks again and I will see you tomorrow. Bye-bye. You just [music] want to be involved, don't you? You just want to be in on the action.

[00:10:07]>> [music]