The current weather chart shows a cut-off low moving into South Australia, then across NSW and this is an excellent situation for rain.

North East Victoria will probably not get much rain from this cut-off low but a new low is coming the region’s way early next week. 

It has been the same old weather pattern for several weeks -frequent passages of cold fronts, strong winds and showery periods, mainly in North East Victoria and the Riverina, but little or no rain further north where rain is desperately needed.

However, last weekend a very active cold change brought widespread snowfalls and temperatures well below normal for August.

Once again, rain was confined to Victoria and no rain fell north of Wagga.

The icy Antarctic blast first arrived at Macquarie Island on Friday, August 17 and then swept quickly north over Tasmania and then over Victoria. By Sunday night it had reached southern Queensland.

Some locations could record their lowest temperature for the second half of August on record. Southern coastal Victoria and western Tasmania received the heaviest rainfalls last weekend and some places are approaching their wettest ever August – a stark contrast to the drought-stricken areas of NSW and Queensland.

During the past few days, maximum temperatures have increased over most of Western Australia after weeks of below normal temperatures.

Places in the Kimberley and Pilbara regions have recorded maximum temperatures about three degrees above normal or about five degrees higher than the preceding three weeks.

This may result in warmer days in the Albury-Wodonga region toward the end of this month.   

The latest graphs of the Southern Oscillation Index of the past two years to last month has shown to be slightly positive generally and indicates that this is not an El Nino situation.

Past records of SOI, dating back to 1876, show a sudden drop to strong negative values during September and October is very rare.