Canberra is tipped to get more than half its average monthly rainfall over just two days at the end of this week after a string of warmer than average days.
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After a cooler than usual start to January, Weatherzone meteorologist Guy Dixon said a series of troughs converging over south eastern Australia over the next few days would likely bring warm air from inland Australia to the ACT.
Sunday's top of 34 degrees, Monday and Wednesday's predicted tops of 36 degrees and Tuesday and Thursday's forecasts of 35 were "well above" the January average maximum temperature of 28.1 degrees, Mr Dixon said.
Overnight temperatures were also tipped to be hotter, around 5 to 6 degrees above average, with Tuesday likely to be the warmest night with a minimum of 19 degrees.
But Canberrans could expect to feel a cool change on Thursday evening leading to a maximum of just 19 degrees on Friday.
Mr Dixon said the dramatic drop in temperature was not out of the ordinary but thick cloud and showers expected with it would also limit temperatures on Friday and make it more noticeable.
While afternoon thunderstorms on hot days at this time of year were expected, he said the cool change on Thursday and Friday was likely to be wetter than usual.
"It wouldn't be out of the question to see 30 millimetres accumulate over the two days," he said.
So far in January, Canberra has received 22.5 mm of rain, Mr Dixon said.
The rain at the end of the working week would be a "significant boost" towards Canberra reaching or exceeding the average monthly rainfall of 57.5 mm.
The rain-bearing front was likely to cause widespread showers from South Australia over Victoria and southern NSW on Thursday afternoon and Friday.
After the cool change, temperatures were likely to warm up gradually from the weekend, staying in the high 20s for the majority of the following week, Mr Dixon said.
"In terms of conditions [on the weekend] it's not perfect, not the beautiful blue skies and balmy weather we like to see but a vast improvement compared to Friday," he said.
Mr Dixon said so far this month Canberra's average daily maximum temperature was 26 degrees – about two degrees below average for this time of year.
"Having said that we've still got 20 odd days for that average to lift a little bit ... ending this month we should be close to average in terms of maximum temperatures," he said.
"In contrast overnight temps are trending just shy of a degree above average, the average for January is 13.2 degrees and we're tracking at 14.1."
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