More rain forecast for Sydney and Brisbane while Melbourne set for coldest morning of 2024

Sydney and Brisbane are in for another week of wet weather thanks to a potentially record-breaking high pressure system that on Wednesday could also deliver Melbourne its coldest morning so far this year.

Daily showers are forecast along Australia's east coast until at least next Wednesday, with the Bureau of Meteorology expecting as much as 60mm of rain in the cities.

The predicted showers add to a rainy year for Sydney, which has already soaked up more than a year's worth of rain in the first half of 2024.

Heavy rain and storms buffeted the city's north and NSW's central coast on Tuesday afternoon, although the state should face drizzles this week rather than the downpours experienced earlier in the year.

"It's not that really heavy rain that comes all at once ... but it is a long stretch of showery days, and it's going to be hard to dry everything out at this time of year with the cool weather," a BoM senior meteorologist, Angus Hines, said.

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"It will result in quite a long stretch of pretty grey and soggy weather along that coastline."

Showers will spread along the coast as an unusually strong high pressure system sitting over the Great Australian Bight and Tasmania redirects ocean moisture to NSW and Queensland .

That system could break an Australian record for air pressure, now forecast to approach 1044 hPA by Friday, compared with a maximum of 1044.3 hPa at Launceston in 1967.

While the high pressure in the south will send showers north, it will bring clear skies and cold nights this week across Victoria , Tasmania and much of southern Australia.

Melbourne could face its coldest morning of the year on Wednesday, with a forecast minimum of only 1C, while Tuesday saw the coldest mornings for Hobart since 2022 and Adelaide since 2021.

"We could see that repeated through parts of southeastern Australia, with tomorrow likely to be the coldest morning of the week, and we could have many more spots towards the coldest temperatures they've seen this year," Hines said.

Melbourne is forecast to shiver through mornings of 5C or below for a week straight, which would be the coldest week for the city in 11 years, according to Weatherzone.

More showers are forecast to sweep inland over South Australia, Queensland and NSW by the weekend before hitting Victoria next week as the high pressure recedes, potentially delivering milder temperatures to the country's south.