Polar air mass to bring some rain to southern areas, but little elsewhere

Snow of 40cm is expected on Alpine peaks, with snow falling down to 700m, expecting to fall right up the central tablelands to the Blue Mountains and Orange.

Wind gusts will be significant as the cold front passes through, with Alpine areas expecting gusts of 120km/h, and parts of the  South Coast and Illawarra expecting 90km/h winds on Friday. The Riverina and South-West Slopes will not escape the high winds, expected to reach up to 70km/h. Unfortunately there will be little rain for the Riverina.  Central-West, Western or Northern areas.

Weatherzone forecaster Graeme Brittain said different weather models gave different rainfall totals.  For instance, one model suggests Orange may get 40mm of rain over two days, while another suggests little over 10mm.

He said it was dependent on where a trough sat across the state as the major cold fronts swept up from the southern ocean on Friday and Saturday.

Much of the Monaro though seems certain to  get at least 40mm of rain. The Far South Coast including Bega is also expecting good rainfall of up to 40mm over two days.

Temperatures will plummet across southern NSW. Canberra is expecting one of its lowest maximums (9C) for May tomorrow.

The first major snowfall of the season hit Thredbo today. Significant falls are expected over the next few days with possibly over 50cm.  

“Given that is has been a dry autumn, everyone was very excited to see the snow falling this morning and there is great anticipation of what’s to come in the next 36 hours” said Susie Diver,  Thredbo Communications Manager.

Temperatures plummeted minus 1 and with winds around 50km/per hr the wind chill factor is a wintry minus 12.

“Thredbo is prepped and ready for winter with snowmaking is set to fire in the next couple of weeks, it is looking good for a skiing start to winter 2018.”