Pre-winter cold snap hits Australian capital cities

Anthony Colangelo
May 30, 2016, updated May 31, 2016

Higher than average rainfall is likely across Australia from June to August. Photo: BoM

The majority of Australia’s capital cities will shiver through the rest of the week, as huge swathes of the nation well and truly say goodbye to the record hot summer and autumn.

Residents in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Canberra, Hobart and even Perth will be forced to rug up over the next few days.

Hobart will have the lowest temperature of the chilly cities, but despite the national frosty spell, the Bureau of Meteorology warned that for many areas winter would not be similarly cold.

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Rainfall was set to be above average from June to August, the Bureau of Meteorology predicted in its recently released monthly and seasonal outlook.

The temperatures were a welcome change from the sweltering hangover most of the nation experienced during March and April.

Scroll down to see the forecast for your capital city

The southern mainland would be cooler with rainfall for “large parts” of mainland Australia to be up.

The chance of rainfall being higher than the median was biggest in central NSW, SA and southern Queensland.

It was also more than a 50 per cent chance in metropolitan Melbourne, Hobart, Sydney, Canberra, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth.

Minimums in Canberra, Melbourne and Hobart were forecast to get into single figures over the next week.

Melbourne’s forecast low of 3C for Tuesday morning would be the chilliest mark recorded since before June 2007.

Higher than average rainfall is likely across Australia from June to August. Photo: BoM

BoM forecaster Rob Taggart told the ABC general temperatures in Sydney were the coldest since August last year, while most sites across the state recorded the coldest May morning in about five years.

He said the chilly weather had been caused by a cold front.

“We’ve had a front come through and that’s brought some dry southerly winds,” he said.

Rain was expected to hit all capital cities except Darwin during the next week, with Sydney and Canberra set to be the worst hit by downpours.

There would be “warmer than average daytime temperatures for the tropical north and parts of southeast Australia” during winter, BoM said.