southerly buster

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southerly buster (plural southerly busters)

1. (Australia, chiefly New South Wales and Western Australia) A summer cold front which works its way up the coast, bringing strong cool southerly winds that replaces and relieves hot conditions.
   • 1850, B. C. Peck, Recollections of Sydney, quoted in 1978, G. A. Wilkes, A Dictionary of Australian Colloquialisms, →ISBN,

     It is almost a corollary, that the evening of a hot-wind day brings up a ‘southerly buster’, as we have heard the vulgar call it, very chill indeed ... as this wind comes from the southerly region of the Australian Alps.

   • 1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 197:

     We sighted land with a strong gale blowing, and on reaching Fremantle found no less than six ships hard and fast ashore; the harbour, unfortunately, is exposed to the full force of what is known in those parts as a "Southerly Buster," and huge green rollers were tumbling and tossing in all directions.

   • 1900, Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim, page xiii. 106:

     It was a brilliant day; a southerly buster was raging[.]

   • 1995, Journal of Meteorology, Volume 20, Issues 200-204, page 213,

     Some southerly busters have roll-clouds or lines of cumulus congestus, but these are uncommon.

   • 1997, Peter Baines, Kathy McInnes, 24. The southerly buster, Eric Kenneth Webb (editor), Windows on Meteorology: Australian Perspective, unnumbered page,

     The southerly buster is a particularly abrupt form of cold front which affects the New South Wales south coastal region, ranging from about Gabo Island to Port Macquarie.