Destructive winds blast Melbourne and the southeast!

Powerful winds are pummelling the south-eastern states as a vigorous cold front rapidly crosses the region. Severe weather warnings for damaging winds remain current for the Lower South East district of SA, most of Victoria, and southern NSW. The worst affected areas have been the ski resorts with a whopping 143kmh wind gust recorded at Mt Hotham at 1.30am this morning- its strongest in a year. SA's Cape Jaffa, TAS's Mount Read and NSW's Thredbo also recorded wind gusts over 100kmh.

A band of intense rain and thunderstorms also developed across Melbourne's suburbs this morning producing damaging wind gusts. At 10.24am, Melbourne Airport was pounded by a 93kmh gust and at 10.40am, St Kilda was shaken by a gust of 113kmh. These winds are strong enough to bring down trees and powerlines.

The heaviest rain has unfortunately been over the ski resorts. And yes, it has been rain since temperatures didn't get cold enough for snow! To 9am this morning, Mt Hotham picked up a slushy 55mm, while Thredbo got drenched with 71mm! It also bucketed down over northern Tasmania with 60-80mm falls prompting minor flood warnings for the North and South Esk river basins.

Wintry blast sends snow and shivers across the southeast!

A vigorous cold front pounded the southeast yesterday with damaging winds, snow, showers and icy cold temperatures. The highest recorded wind gust was a massive 137kmh at Wilsons Promontory and the maximum temperature in Orange, NSW, only got to 5 degrees! But while everyone was shivering, the ski resorts lapped up the winter chill with snowy blizzards delivering around 5-10cm of fresh powder. The picture above is from Mount Buller. Selwyn Snowfields picked up 17cm and with a 32 hour marathon of man-made snowmaking, the resort will likely open this weekend with 2 lifts.

In Tasmania, snow fell as low as 400m turning towns like Waratah into a winter wonderland. With cold air heading east out of Tasmania today, the snow is retreating up to 1200m by tonight but will be back down to 700m tomorrow. A Bushwalkers Alert is current for southern , western and central Tasmania.

Tornado lashes Lennox

An east coast low has been dumping heavy rain over the NSW coast with a supercell thunderstorm- the rarest and most intense type of storm- spawning a tornado that severely damaged 30 homes in Lennox Head yesterday morning. Supercell storms are not only rare in general, but they're even more rare in June which is two months after the official storm season. However yesterday's atmospheric conditions created the perfect set up for a supercell. We had warm humid air at the surface and very cold and dry air aloft- the contrast between the two air masses created a great amount of instability leading to the supercell formation. Supercells are characterised by a rotation in the cloud and when heavy rain bursts down to the surface, the downdraught can carry this rotation right down to the ground which materialises as a tornado. We normally get around 20 tornados in Australia every year but because they often occur in unpopulated areas they usually go unreported.

Apart from serious tornado damage, heavy rain is also drenching the NSW coast. As much as 171mm fell across Ballina in a 24 hour period to 9am yesterday morning, its heaviest rain in 6 years. The low has shifted further south today so rain has eased for the Northern Rivers, but increased across areas to the south of the low like the Mid North Coast and Hunter districts. To 9am this morning, Port Macquarie Golf Club picked up 83mm and Norah Head received 56mm. Heavy overnight rain also delivered over 50mm to Sydney's suburbs including North Rocks, West Pennant Hills and Hornsby. Heavy rain will continue between Port Macquarie and Wollongong today, easing back tomorrow as the low moves east. However, rain will intensify once again on Sunday.