Several cold fronts are expected to bring wet and windy weather to southern parts of Australia this week

As a “cold snap” breaks in Queensland, several cold fronts are set to sweep across southern Australia and bring widespread rain and damaging winds to multiple states this week.

A series of low pressure systems that have developed in the Bass Strait and off the east coast of Tasmania will bring wet and windy weather to Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania this week.

It comes as large parts of Australia have already experienced significant rainfall, with weekly totals between 25mm to 100mm recorded across Tasmania, along the southwest coast of Western Australia, the southeast coast of South Australia, most of Victoria, and southern elevated and some inland areas of New South Wales.

The highest weekly rainfall total was nearly 210mm at Mount Baw Baw in Victoria, which also recorded the highest daily total of 116.8mm in just 24 hours last Tuesday.

The cold fronts are also expected to bring windy weather to the states, with the windiest days expected to hit on Tuesday and Wednesday.

As the low pressure system moves across the bight later this week, another burst of strong winds is likely to reach south eastern Australia, with winds expected to reach “damaging strength”.

Tasmania could also experience damaging winds from Tuesday and into Saturday.

These winds have the potential to cause “cut out” in parts of South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and the ACT on Wednesday and Thursday, meaning wind turbines are turned off during strong winds to prevent damage.

Wind power could be lost as many wind farms are expected to turn off the turbines once winds reach 90km/h.