Australia

Temperatures are all over the place in Melbourne at the moment, with winter-like lows and summery highs in the space of one week.

October is usually a time of ups and downs in Melbourne, with bursts of warm air from the interior competing against pulses of cold air from the south. This spring see-saw is why Melbourne's weather is sometimes described as 'four seasons in one day.'

If you're a fan of a fast Bathurst you may be in luck with a mostly dry forecast for the big race on Sunday.

Conditions today look mostly dry with some lingering cloud. It's also a milder day with a high of around 20 degrees expected.

A cool change finally made its way to eastern parts of Sydney on Friday, following what has shaped up to be the hottest October day in two years across various suburbs.

By 1pm, the temperature had dropped by almost 14 degrees in Mascot after it hit 34.7 degrees about 30 minutes earlier.

A wet start to the week did little to boost the Sydney's water storage levels, according to a report released by Water NSW on Thursday.

Sydney Observatory Hill received 111.8mm of rain during the 72 hours to 9am on Thursday. This was the city's highest three-day total in 10 months and exceeded its entire September monthly average of 68mm.

Widespread showers look to develop early next week, giving some parched parts of the state a needed drink.

Parts of the Murray Darling Basin have amassed multi-year rainfall deficiencies that have no precedent during the last 120 years, with more dry weather on the way.

A prolonged spell of drier-than-usual weather has seen some areas of eastern Australia fall more than one metre behind their usual rainfall totals during the last three years.

In a month that has Perth's highest August temperature in 122 years of records, this month is ending on a wet note.

The warm northerly winds that brought the mercury up to 30 degrees on Wednesday 28th have now moved well away from Perth, and have been replaced by increasingly unsettled conditions.

A trough and possible cut-off low will bring welcome rain for much of eastern NSW next week.

Most of NSW will enjoy a sunny weekend, however those sunny skies will start turning cloudy from late Sunday with rain and showers shortly following for most of eastern NSW, including parts of the ranges and some western slopes.

A large and powerful swell hit the NSW coast on Thursday, with maximum wave heights exceeding 13 meters near Sydney.

A waverider buoy located about 10km off Sydney's Northern Beaches registered a maximum wave height of 13.32 metres at 4pm on Thursday. 

A series of cold fronts being driven by a deep low pressure system will cause rain, hail, thunderstorms, heavy snow, damaging winds and blizzards in southeastern Australia during the second half of this week. 

A large pool of cold, upper level air surging out of the Southern Ocean will pass over Australia's southeastern states between Thursday and Sunday.