Rollercoaster first week of spring weather set to continue

From sweltering summer heats to wild winds and bushfire warnings, the rollercoaster weather of the first weekend of spring is set to continue.

The Bureau of Meteorology forecast Sydney could reach a balmy maximum of 30C on Friday, well above the 19C reported on the same day last year.

Conditions are set to ease into the weekend, with the Bureau predicting temperatures to dip to as low as 16C on Sunday with up to 1mm of rain forecast.

It comes as much of the state’s south prepares for another lashing of damaging winds on Thursday and into Friday with peak gusts of up to 105km predicted.

For Friday, the ACT, southern and central tablelands, south coast, and Blue Mountains, Illawarra, and Snowy Mountains are all in the path of possibly severe winds.

To the south, Melbourne is forecast for a drenching of up to 10mm of rain on Friday before the rain clouds ease and the temperatures drop into the weekend.

The Garden City is forecast to reach a potential high of 24C on Friday, before dipping to maximums of 18C over the weekend with minimums as low as 11C.

Damaging wind warnings also remained in place for swathes of Victoria’s east on Thursday evening and continuing into Friday morning.

The areas expected to be impacted included alpine regions, as well as Central and Gippsland districts and the outer suburbs of Melbourne and Geelong.

Further west, Adelaide was forecast to reach 20C on Friday, dipping slightly into the weekend, with rains falling a maximum of 8mm down to just 1mm.

Brisbane, meanwhile, was unlikely to receive a drop of rain over the weekend, with clear skies, sunny conditions, and maximum of a balmy 29C.

The same cannot be said for Tasmania where after floods last week Hobart was forecast for up to 10mm on Friday before also largely dissipating.

Minor flood warnings remained in place as of Wednesday afternoon for the Macquarie, Isis, Lake, Meander, Mersey, North Esk, and South Esk rivers.

Perth was forecast to receive up to 3mm on Friday, with maximum temperatures not expected to exceed 22C over the weekend.

Fire weather warnings were in place on Thursday for the Central Interior region of Western Australia.

Elsewhere, Darwin was forecast for highs of 35C and scant chances of rain, while Canberra was expected to reach 24C on Friday.