Orange to cop summer cold snap in lead-up to Christmas day, 2022

That won't happen in 2022, but ... this week Orange looks likely to record one of its coldest December days on record, with a rogue plume of cold air bringing with it Antarctic-like conditions for the Central West.

As a result, Orange is forecast to hit a top of just 12 degrees Celsius on Thursday, December 15.

The lowest maximum temperature recorded in Orange for December, according to Weatherzone.com, is a top of 10.1 degrees on December 2, 1987.

Meteorologist Steph Spackman said it's not unusual for cold bursts of air throughout the start of summer, but a combination of a few different factors means this week's cold snap will be particularly brisk.

And that means - wait for it - we could even see some snow, just not as far north as Orange.

Ms Spackman says the alpine regions of NSW will see a dusting, perhaps on Wednesday morning, with temperatures predicted to begin to dip mid-week.

She said the same system is responsible for the wave of thunderstorms and turbulent gusts of wind moving across the region, too.

By Monday lunchtime, storms poured around 15mm of rain into the Bureau of Meteorology's main weather station at the Orange Airport.

As for the cold snap, Ms Spackman said a low pressure system moving across the country, which now sits off the coast of Tasmania, is similar to weather patterns we've seen throughout spring.

The system stretches a lot further south, closer to Antarctica, and when that happens winds catapult cold air over the south-east of Australia.

"It's a spinning wheel. The wheel catches the cold air in the south and then pulls it up and sends it to Australia," she said.

"What we have is essentially a cold pool of air ... continuing to travel north, some of those temps are quite cool. Cold enough to possibly see snow in higher regions."

She said the blob of cold air will park itself over Orange and most of NSW on Wednesday and Thursday morning, and with some cloud cover around the maximum temperatures will be "suppressed" again.

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