Weather News

Is it a buster?

Tristan Meyers, Wednesday February 25, 2015 - 13:34 AEDT

A cool change is looking to push through southern and southeastern Australia from Saturday.

Although Friday sees Adelaide sweltering again in a 37 degree day, a cold front is looking to arrive around early afternoon on Saturday, possibly even saving the City of Churches from yet another scorcher.

As this front treks across the south of the nation, it will reach Melbourne by late Saturday evening. Unfortunately, this looks to be a bit too late to save Melburnians from a baking in toasty, northerly winds.

The front will squeeze through the Bass Strait and round the southeast of Australia, advancing up the New South Wales coast towards Sydney. This strong southerly should breach Sydney's shores by early Sunday afternoon, perhaps just in time for residents of the Eastern Suburbs to be spared a hot and sticky day.

You will notice this change reach your city by first, and most obviously, the strong wind and near immediate drop in temperature. These strong southerlies also bring puffy low cloud; so low that they appear to be moving quite fast!

In Sydney, if winds gust in excess of 54 km/h and a three hour temperature drop of at least five degrees occurs, it is known as a "Southerly Buster".

Sometimes, southerly busters have been accompanied with a "roll cloud", which looks like a cylinder of cloud approaching, marking the edge of the change.

The last southerly buster to come through Sydney was late January and it dropped the Sydney's temperature 6 degrees in an hour. Anyone with a view towards the south would have seen a very thin and wispy roll cloud approaching - only discernible to those looking for it.

- Weatherzone

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