Australia weather: Temperatures fall as rain, cold front hits Victoria, NSW

Parks across Sydney and Melbourne were full of people across the weekend as temperatures ballooned to 23C and 25C and locals basked in the warm sunshine.

But those maximums are set to fall this week, as a cold front crosses southeast Australia, bringing significant rainfall.

Melbourne will drop to just 14C on Tuesday with the weather bureau also forecasting up to 20mm of rain, while a top of 21C is expected for Sydney and falls of up to 20mm on Wednesday.

Sky News Weather meteorologist Rob Sharpe said the wet weather was “back with a vengeance”.

He said a cool front was moving across Victoria and coastal NSW, and the cool change was bringing showers and storms with it.

Mr Sharpe said another trough was clearing Tasmania’s north coast and pushing into Victoria on Monday morning.

“With that we’re seeing those showers, maybe a little bit of small hail, pushing across the state, and then we’ll see a little bit of snow developing into Tuesday as well,” he said.

Mr Sharpe said the showers would be “pretty heavy” around the Melbourne area on Tuesday morning.

“The wet weather will continue across northeast NSW on Wednesday … (then) that band of rain will run southward along the NSW coastline, some pretty windy weather attached to it as well,” he said.

Between 50mm to 100mm of rain is expected across far eastern Victoria and southeast NSW over the next week, with 25 to 50mm for much of the NSW coast down to Melbourne and 15 to 25mm in other regions.

“We’re talking about some handy falls compared to the very dry month of April,” Mr Sharpe said.

Elsewhere, coastal and inland Western Australia is expected to be hit by two rainfall systems this week, bringing with it falls of between 25mm to 50mm in the southwest, the wheatbelt and even parts of the west Pilbara region.

jack.paynter@news.com.au