Australia is preparing for extreme weekend weather, including cold spells

Northwest Western Australia is preparing for severe weather on Wednesday morning, which could potentially cause flooding.

The Bureau of Meteorology has issued a severe weather warning of heavy rainfall for residents of Pilbar and some areas of Gascoigne, Northern Interior and Southern Interior.

This has led to flood monitoring in some areas of Pilbar and the Central Desert, as projected rain could cause flooding, hazardous road conditions and damage properties.

BOM said the “six-hour rainfall is likely to be 70 to 100 mm” for Pilbury, with individual amounts up to 120 mm, potentially along the coastal outskirts.

The cloud cover is projected to weaken later in the afternoon, but is expected to return over the weekend and will also affect the south-west of the state.

“Another band of clouds in the northwest is set over the weekend and a lot of rain in the southwest… bringing wet and windy weather from Sunday to Tuesday,” said Sky News meteorologist Rob Sharp.

“The whole amount of rain is significant, 50 to 100 mm around Perth and Banbury.”

At the other end of the country, the cold front is moving through the southeast, which means that in some parts of Tasmania, Victoria and the South-South-East today there are cold, humid and cloudy conditions.

But although on Thursday, the weather is forecast to weaken and clear up, it means that in the future these areas will face the “threat of frost.”

Thursday’s frost is expected to affect much of southern and central NSW, northern Victoria and a small part of Tasmania.

But the next day the frost will move to other parts of Victoria and Tasmania and may be delayed all weekend and next week.

“I expected that in some places (there will be) frost three out of four days in a row before things start to clear up by the middle of next week,” Mr Sharpe said.

While Queensland and NSW are experiencing a brief respite from heavy rainfall, that is expected to change this weekend.

Rainfall of 10 to 20 mm is forecast in Brisbane and Sydney. Affected areas are expected along the coastlines of the states.

“Election day in eastern Queensland will be very wet, but in eastern NSW we will also see a whole bunch of downpours coming and going,” Mr Sharpe said.

“Over the next eight days, as the wet weather persists a bit and after that (the weekend), we’re talking about 50 to 100mm for most of the NSW and Queensland coasts.”

Sea wind warnings today also apply to each state, but not in any of the territories.