It's a warm and toasty Tuesday to be trackside at Flemington on Melbourne Cup Day, with parts of the city reaching 30°C by midday, although storms could be on their way.

While the city's official weather station at Melbourne Olympic Park had recorded a highest temps of 29.2°C by noon, slightly higher temps were recorded by miday or shortly afterwards in suburbs including:

• 30.7°C at Laverton in the city's outer southwest
• 30.4°C at Moorabbin Airport in the city's southeast

The image below of live temps at midday on Tuesday, November 7, shows as interesting picture.

A tongue of warm air is extending down across Victoria from the northwest and Melbourne is pretty much in the bullseye on the state's southern coast, making for very warm conditions out at Flemington.

Further east in Gippsland, temps are at least five degrees cooler at most sea-level locations, while in western Victoria, temps are at least 10 degrees cooler at numerous coastal locations.

With blustery northerly winds bringing heat to Melbourne, pollen levels are forecast to be very high today and there could also be airborne dust.

Meanwhile horse racing enthusiasts who like to see local horses triumph in the great race will be pleased by these meteorological developments, as the European-trained horses don't tend to enjoy the hot weather or a firm track.

But as mentioned, showers or storms could cool things down

As we wrote yesterday the likelihood of showers increases throughout the day, with a 19% chance at race time at 3 pm, jumping to 70% at 4 pm.

Indeed one model shows storms moving across the Melbourne metropolitan area