A large swathe of Western Australia is in for a decent drop of rain in coming days, with showers potentially penetrating further north and east than you'd typically see with a winter cold front.

The image at the top of this story shows the predicted rainfall accumulations to 8 pm Thursday, after which the atmosphere will slowly begin to dry out across most of the shaded areas.

And the image below shows why the coming rain is so desperately needed. It's the rainfall graph for Perth over the last 12 months, and it's representative of the situation right across southwestern WA.

• As you can see, Perth has had below-average rainfall for each of the last 12 months.
• So even though winter started with good falls and the city has recorded 97 mm in June 2024 to date, it still needs another 33.3 mm to reach the monthly average.
• The good news is that totals in that vicinity are possible, with 10 to 20 mm expected on both Wednesday and Thursday as the low crosses the coastline and moves inland.

The system will arrive with gusty northerly winds during Tuesday night and Wednesday morning ahead of the first cold front and trough crossing mid-morning on Wednesday. The majority of the rain will fall with the front and there is the chance of thunderstorms.

During Thursday and Friday morning, the core of the cold air, and the low pressure centre will start to cross the region and develop into a cut-off low.

Cut-off lows are low pressure systems which are cut-off from the band of westerly winds which circulate the globe south of Australia. As the cut-off low ushers in the coldest air, scattered thunderstorms could occur across the southwest, while small hail is likely and there's even the chance of some brief cold-season tornados.

Bitterly cold temperatures made worse by the wind chill can also be expected, and there's the chance of light snow on the Stirling Range, which rises to an elevation of 1099m not far north of Albany. Friday morning is the most likely time for a brief snow flurry.

The weekend is looking sunny, which will be good news for fans attending the the battle of the big birds – the West Coast Eagles vs Hawthorn Hawks AFL match – which starts at 2:40 pm (AWST) on Sunday at Optus Stadium.