Parts of Australia are bracing for more wild weather with severe winds and thunderstorms expected to batter the southeast over the coming days.
A cold front will sweep across parts of South Australia, Victoria, NSW and the ACT between Wednesday evening and Friday morning, bringing potentially dangerous conditions with it.
Damaging winds are expected to be the most challenging result of the cold weather system with a severe weather warning already in place for elevated parts of Victoria from early Thursday.
The NSW Rural Fire Service has also declared a total fire ban for several regions of the state including Greater Sydney and the Greater on Thursday, due to forecast hot and windy conditions.
Colder weather warning
Big temperature swings are expected with the sunshine beaming down on much of the southeast on Wednesday giving way to far colder conditions.
Canberra will drop from the high 20s at lunchtime on Thursday to under 10 degrees by late afternoon, according to Sky News Weather.
Many areas of NSW should be alert before the change in conditions.
Warm and gusty weather on Thursday morning is likely to see fire weather warnings issued for Sydney, the Hunter Valley and the Central and Northwest regions before the cold front arrives late in the day, Sky News Weather say.
Adelaide residents will be the first ones to notice the change as the cold front sweeps across South Australia on Wednesday evening.
Heavy rainfall is also expected with storms possible in Sydney and Melbourne on Thursday evening.
‘Summer from hell’ predicted
The warnings come amid a grim longer-term outlook with a “summer from hell” predicted by many experts.
A long-term forecast from the Bureau of Meteorology revealed an increased risk of heatwaves, bushfires and drought over the next seven months driven by the arrival of an El Nino weather event.
Aussies were warned to do everything they could to prepare for the worst before summer hits.
“There is always a risk of dangerous and destructive fires in Australia at this time of year,” Senior Meteorologist Sarah Scully said.
“Grass growth due to above average rainfall in the past two to three years is contributing to an increased fire risk.”
The increased risk appears to have arrived early this year after Australia sweated through its hottest winter on record.
Some NSW and Victoria residents were warned it was too late to leave their homes as fires raged in several areas throughout the first week of October.
One blaze near Bermagui, NSW destroyed three homes and needed 800 firefighters to extinguish.
“It could have been so much worse,” NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner Rob Rogers said.
“The fire season is absolutely here and we need to take this seriously”.