Victorians, don’t put away your mittens just yet – a cold snap has arrived and it intends to stay until the weekend.
After Sunday’s balmy conditions saw most of the state basking in the 30s, commuters travelling to work on Monday morning will experience a significantly different morning – and day – to the weekend’s sunny conditions.
At 7.30am, Melbourne was 10.8 degrees, Geelong 9.7, Mildura 9.9, Bendigo 9.1 and Ballarat 5.3.
Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Scott Williams said Melburnians could be hit with storms and hail on Monday afternoon as the cold front intensified.
“There is a real risk of hail and thunder this afternoon due to the quite cold air mass that moved from south of Tasmania and onto us,” Mr Williams said.
Wind chill will also add to the cold, with gusts of up to 40 km/h “making it feel like 8 to 10 degrees”, Mr Williams said.
“The wind will be reasonably fresh across Melbourne and most of Victoria today … and the very dry air should make it feel quite a few degrees colder.”
Mr Williams said October has traditionally been a volatile month and that it was “fairly common” for Victoria to experience big temperature swings during the month, with recorded overnight temperature drops of up to 20 degrees.
“Twice in relatively recent records we have actually dropped by almost 20 degrees,” Mr Williams said.
“The most notable was in 1979 when [the temperature] went down to 14.6 from 34.5.”
Across Victoria, Swan Hill and Kerang hold the highest temperature recorded for Sunday at 35, followed by 34 at Mildura.
Both have dropped significantly overnight, Mr Williams said.
But Melburnians, don’t be too depressed: although Mr Williams said it would remain cool until Thursday, the weekend was looking sunny and “pleasantly warm” with a forecast of 24 for Saturday and 28 for Sunday.
This story first appeared in The Age
