Heavy downpour for Queensland, coldest day yet for ACT, Victoria

Parts of Queensland have been lashed with heavy rain and there's more to come, while Melbourne and Canberra have each recorded their coldest day of the year so far.

Heavy downpours, about 200 to 400 millimetres, have already been recorded in some parts of Far North Queensland surrounding Townsville.

Magnetic Island received more than 150mm of rain since yesterday morning, and about 200mm is expected to fall today around Cairns.

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The weather system is set to move across to Western Queensland next week, while much of the east coast will see showers on and off - dampening the clean up efforts in flood impacted communities.

Parts of Victoria and the ACT are having an early taste of winter, with Melbourne and Canberra both shivering through their lowest temperature so far this year.

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Earlier this week, a pair of cold fronts crossed south-eastern Australia, dropping temperatures and delivering a dusting of snow in the Tasmanian highlands.

Melbourne reached 7.7C just after 7am on Friday, delivering the city it's lowest temperature since mid-November last year.

In Canberra, the mercury dipped to 3.1C just after 6am, which was also its coldest morning since November.

Daytime maximums will reach the high-teens to low-twenties in both cities for the next few days. At dusk and dawn the cold air is set to linger.

Coastal showers are impacting much of NSW, with Mount Elliot recording the maximum rainfall at 26mm.

NSW temperatures are currently between 1C and 5C below average.

The overnight minimum temperature across the state was from -1.4C at Thredbo to 19.3C at Lord Howe Island .

Scattered coastal showers across the state are likely to persist for the coming week.