Weekend snow system moves over south-east Australia

The huge weather system could bring with it snowfalls as low as 800 metres from this weekend, the Bureau of Meteorology predicts.

Depending on where you are in Australia you could experience anywhere from a "small dusting" to a "snow dump" senior climatologist Dean Narramore from the Bureau said.

Mountainous alpine regions at 1500 metres like Perisher or Mount Hotham will experience the most snow with up to 10 centimetres predicted early next week, while lower areas will experience less.

"We could see a couple of centimetres with only light falls or flurries expected outside of our alpine areas," Mr Narramore said.

"At this stage there's a lot of cold air, but there's only some showers rather than a big band of rain or snow moving across," he said.

Mr Narramore said the cold front is "likely to linger" until the end of next week and will bring more than just snow to the south-east.

"There's definitely a prolonged period of cold weather with widespread frost for alpine areas," he said.

"There's going to be very cold air, cloudy days with some scattered showers each day."

While the cold will persist, it's the amount of moisture in conjunction with the cold that determines whether it will snow.

"It might be minus 10, but that doesn't mean there will be snow. We need the cold air to coincide with the moisture ... for the snow to fall to those lower levels," he said.

"We'll have a better idea of how much moisture we expect with the cold as we get later into the week and particularly on the weekend."

In NSW, snow is predicted to fall next week in the Central Tablelands and the Blue Mountains in towns like Katoomba, Lithgow, Orange and Oberon.

It will also snow in the more southern part of the state in Crookwell and the Snowy Mountains region in Cooma, Jindabyne, Perisher and Thredbo.

In Victoria, it's predicted to snow in the north-east of the state at Mount Hotham, Mount Buller and Lake Mountain from Saturday, July 13.

In Tasmania, snowfall will be concentrated in the central Liawenee region but will also fall in Hobart and the Cradle Valley.

In the ACT, snow is predicted in Namadgi National Park, the Brindabellas and the west towards the Cotter River but not in the country's capital.