A band of rain is developing over southwestern Victoria, and this one comes with a punch of bitterly cold air. While it is mild in Melbourne during the day on Wednesday, Wednesday evening and Thursday morning will deliver much colder and wetter weather.
First, there is the band of rain as temperatures plummet. By 6pm it should be around 15C, and by 9pm it should be around 11C. The rain breaks to showers overnight, but the temperature keeps falling, dropping to around 7C by dawn on Thursday.
Thursday morning is the coldest part of this weather system. Expect gusty showers to continue to stream through, producing very changeable weather — pouring one minute, sunny the next, and repeat. But those sunny breaks in between the downpours will be anything but warm. Wind chill values may be in the negatives.
Thursday morning is when these showers are likely to contain wintry hail — the tiny balls of ice that bounce when they reach the ground. Snow is likely to fall to low levels, down to around 500 metres above sea level. That means we may see snow in places like Trentham/Daylesford area, Mt Macedon, and Mt Dandenong, plus decent snowfalls in all the alpine areas.
Melbourne and Victoria's terrain will play a big part in which areas see lots of rain versus hardly anything into the gauge. The Great Dividing Range that runs across the centre of Victoria from west to east ensures that hardly any rain will impact those in the north. All the action this time is in the south, but some parts will see a lot more than others — again, thanks to our terrain.
Melbourne's eastern suburbs, western parts of Gippsland, the Otway ranges, parts of the Great Dividing Range, and far East Gippsland are set for the big falls this time. Rain totals of 20mm to 50mm are highly likely in those areas, while in Melbourne's western suburbs it is more like 5mm to 10mm.
The Otway ranges (just inland from Lorne on the Otway Coast, as you drive along the Great Ocean Road) will take most of the rain before it dries up as it crosses the western suburbs. Those drier winds will re-moisten as they cross Port Phillip Bay, bringing heavier rain as the moisture-laden clouds cross the eastern suburbs, increasing as they travel eastwards thanks to the new mountain range that these winds encounter — the Dandenongs.
It will still be miserable in the western suburbs with lots of showers passing through, but those showers will add up to more in the east. It all eases during the afternoon on Thursday and by late afternoon it may have risen to about 14C in the city after a bitter morning. The next burst of showers hits on Thursday night and continues for much of Friday, but this one is not as chilly as the main event on Thursday morning.
