You wouldn't have seen an almost total lack of green rain blobs on the Weatherzone national rain radar too often in this La Niña summer. But right now, the whole continent is almost clear.

The only minor areas of rain are some scattered showers in outback WA as well as some extremely light stuff associated with a trough moving through central Victoria and the Riverina district of NSW that have yet to deliver more than 0.2 mm to any official weather station.

There are also one or two wet season showers around the coast near Darwin, which could intensify later this afternoon.

But otherwise, it's pretty much a perfect sunny day with warm (but not too hot) temperatures in most of the country.

And while sunny skies should stick around for the next few days in many places, they'll be interrupted in Australia's biggest city and capital city.

• Sydney and much of the NSW coastline (except the far north) is set for a return to showers and possible storms this evening and Friday. Showers will likely persist into part of Saturday too.
• Canberra could also see showers and storms, possibly severe, this evening.

Otherwise, the pattern in non-tropical Australia should remain relatively stable for the next four or five days at least.

The next 24-48 hours should be slightly cooler in SE Australia under the influence of southwesterly to southeasterly winds. Indeed, Melbourne is already feeling the cool change, with a top of just 23°C on the cards today and a temperature of 21.2°C at 12:10 pm as we write this story.

But warmer temps will return towards the end of the weekend and into next week, with a spell of high 20s and low 30s likely in most towns and cities in SE Australia.