Australia's south-east is shivering through another cold front on the day of the winter solstice.

It's the shortest day of the year and showers are forecast for multiple states as a cold front sweeps through. Alpine regions can expect more snow.

"Conditions (will) ease quickly for NSW by Wednesday, but cloud and showers hang around elsewhere," the Bureau said of the temporary wet weather.

EXPLAINED: What is the winter solstice?

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The heaviest rain is expected in Victoria's eastern ranges with up to 25mm forecast by the end of today.

Sydney was treated to a spectacular sunrise likely caused by the afterglow from Tonga's volcanic eruption in January.

New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospherics (Niwa) last week confirmed vibrant sunrises and sunsets in Australia and NZ are being caused by "a high concentration of sulphuric acid & sea salt aerosols in the stratosphere".

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Multiple cities woke to lows in the singe digits this morning.

Minimum temperatures of 2C and 9C were recorded in Canberra, Hobart and Sydney.

Adelaide woke to 10C, as did residents in the Sunshine Coast. Melbourne recorded a low of 11C.

Let's take a look to see what the weather is doing across the nation today.

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Brisbane

It will be a sunny day in Brisbane, with a high of 23C. It comes after a low of 11C this morning.

Sydney

A "shower or two" is developing in Sydney and a maximum temperature of 20C is forecast today.

Melbourne

The mercury will reach 15C in Melbourne today. A possible shower is forecast for later this morning.

Canberra

Rain is also developing in Canberra with showers likely from late morning, into the afternoon. The mercury will reach 12C there.

Hobart

A top temperature of 14C is forecast in Hobart. It will be cloudy with a slight chance of a shower.

Adelaide

Showers are increasing in Adelaide, with 1 to 3 mm of rain forecast alongside a maximum of 16C.

Darwin

It will be mostly sunny in Darwin with a top temperature of 33C.

Perth

A morning shower is possible for Western Australia's capital. The mercury will reach 22C.

A year 11 student survived a crash that killed seven of his relatives, including his younger brother and his mother.

He was one of a family group that encompassed three generations, some of whom lived in Pukekohe, south of Auckland, and arrived in the South Island on Thursday morning.

The victims are Paul Brown and his wife Diseree Brown and their son Mark. Diseree's sister, Divine Dolar also died in the crash along with her daughter Flordeliza Dolar.

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Two other relatives survived the crash, but the partner of one died, along with their baby, Mika.

The group includes members of the Filipino community.

The family had driven to Dunedin to attend a funeral two hours drive west in Gore on Saturday, before embarking on their journey home later that day.

After spending several hours in Christchurch, they ventured further north in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Several hours later, just south of Picton, where they were due to catch a Cook Strait ferry back to the North Island, the van crossed the centreline and collided with a refrigerated goods truck on State Highway 1 between Blenheim and Picton about 7.30am on Sunday.

Seven of the nine people in the mangled wreck of the van, including a baby and the driver, died. Two of the passengers remain in hospital following the crash. One is in intensive care in a serious condition.

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The truck driver suffered minor injuries.

On Monday afternoon, Pukekohe High School principal Richard Barnett emailed parents to advise them that two of their students were involved in the crash.

"One of our Year 10 students died at the scene of the accident. His older brother, in Year 11, remains in hospital. Our thoughts and condolences are with their family and close friends.

"Students and staff who knew the two students well are being supported and cared for in school today. Additional counselling support has been made available, and the school is closely following advice from the Ministry's Traumatic Incident team."

Barnett told Stuff the school was "deeply affected" by the crash. He declined to comment in detail about the students, but said they were a "beautiful family".

On Monday, Paul Brown's sister said she was struggling to come to grips with what had happened.

She described her sibling as a "wonderful brother" who taught autistic children.

The woman said her brother, his wife, his sister-in-law, a 6-month-old baby and several teenagers were in the van.

"We're coping as well as can be expected at this time, seven members from one family to go at once is just tragic."

Paul Brown worked at Parkside Specialist School in Pukekohe.

Principal Carol Willard said staff and students were "deeply saddened" by his "tragic death".

Brown was a "much respected and loved member of our school community".

Auckland Filipino community leader Romy Udanga said the community was still trying to see how they could help the family, but fundraising had already begun through a church.

"The community is shocked as to what happened, especially with there being children as well.

"It's a tragedy."

Udanga wanted to remind people to stay safe over the upcoming school holidays and long weekend and to not rush driving.

Police are continuing to investigate what caused the van to cross the centreline.

Videos on social media show those in the van arriving in Picton on Thursday. One of them is heard saying "another ten hours drive".

The group is pictured in a photo at the funeral in Gore on Saturday, with the driver posting about his sadness at the loss of his aunty.

The round trip from Picton to Gore is nearly 1700km. The family were only in the South Island about 72 hours.

The driver of the refrigerated goods truck, which was owned by Big Chill Distribution, had been discharged from hospital by Sunday evening. A friend described him as the "nicest, most humble man in the world".

The crash happened on the same bend where Picton man Gary Kenny died in a head-on collision with a truck in March 2020.

Acting Tasman district commander Inspector Paul Borrell described Sunday's scene as "absolute carnage".

"In a blink of an eye, seven lives are gone," Borrell told media outside Blenheim police station on Sunday afternoon.

"A crash of this scale has a huge impact on both the community where it happens, that of the deceased's family and community, and on emergency services who attend."

Picton Volunteer Fire Brigade chief fire officer Wayne Wytenburg said the scene was "absolutely horrific".

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"I'm lost for words to describe what our emergency services had to deal with," Wytenburg said on Sunday morning.

Big Chill Distribution chief executive Michael Roberts said the company was "devastated" about the crash.

"We are and will continue to work with our contractors and the police to assist while they carry out the investigation. Our immediate focus at this stage is providing assistance and ongoing support to the driver."

The crash is the deadliest in New Zealand since eight people were killed in a crash near Taupō in April 2019.

It's the worst in the South Island in more than two decades.

Sunday's tragedy brings New Zealand's road toll to 185 so far this year – 28 more than at the same time last year.

This article originally appeared on Stuff and has been reproduced with permission

The world's largest recorded freshwater fish, a giant stingray, has been caught in the Mekong River in Cambodia, according to scientists from the Southeast Asian nation and the United States.

The stingray, captured on June 13, measured almost four metres from snout to tail and weighed slightly under 300 kilograms, according to a statement Monday by Wonders of the Mekong, a joint Cambodian-US research project.

The previous record for a freshwater fish was a 293-kilogram Mekong giant catfish, discovered in Thailand in 2005, the group said.

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The stingray was snagged by a local fisherman south of Stung Treng in northeastern Cambodia. The fisherman alerted a nearby team of scientists from the Wonders of the Mekong project, which has publicised its conservation work in communities along the river.

The scientists arrived within hours of getting a post-midnight call with the news, and were amazed at what they saw.

"Yeah, when you see a fish this size, especially in freshwater, it is hard to comprehend, so I think all of our team was stunned," Wonders of the Mekong leader Zeb Hogan said in an online interview from the University of Nevada in Reno. The university is partnering with the Cambodian Fisheries Administration and USAID, the US government's international development agency.

Freshwater fish are defined as those that spend their entire lives in freshwater, as opposed to giant marine species such as bluefin tuna and marlin, or fish that migrate between fresh and saltwater like the huge beluga sturgeon.

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The stingray's catch was not just about setting a new record, he said.

"The fact that the fish can still get this big is a hopeful sign for the Mekong River, " Hogan said, noting that the waterway faces many environmental challenges.

The Mekong River runs through China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. It is home to several species of giant freshwater fish but environmental pressures are rising. In particular, scientists fear a major program of dam building in recent years may be seriously disrupting spawning grounds.

"Big fish globally are endangered. They're high-value species. They take a long time to mature. So if they're fished before they mature, they don't have a chance to reproduce," Hogan said. "A lot of these big fish are migratory, so they need large areas to survive. They're impacted by things like habitat fragmentation from dams, obviously impacted by overfishing. So about 70 per cent of giant freshwater fish globally are threatened with extinction, and all of the Mekong species."

The team that rushed to the site inserted a tagging device near the tail of the mighty fish that will send tracking information for the next year, providing unprecedented data on giant stingray behaviour in Cambodia.

"The giant stingray is a very poorly understood fish. Its name, even its scientific name, has changed several times in the last 20 years," Hogan said. "It's found throughout Southeast Asia, but we have almost no information about it. We don't know about its life history. We don't know about its ecology, about its migration patters."

Researchers say it's the fourth giant stingray reported in the same area in the past two months, all of them females. They think this may be a spawning hotspot for the species.

Local residents nicknamed the stingray "Boramy," or "full moon," because of its round shape and because the moon was on the horizon when it was freed on June 14. In addition to the honor of having caught the record-breaker, the lucky fisherman was compensated at market rate, meaning he received a payment of around $600.

A teenage boy has died while skiing in NSW.

The 18-year-old is believed to have lost control on a slope, veered off and hit trees, NSW Police said.

The accident happened at 11am on Sunday at Thredbo, in the Snowy Mountains.

Other skiers noticed he was hurt and called for help.

He was treated at the scene but died after being taken to a medical centre.

Shore School in North Sydney revealed the victim was an former student who left the school last year.

A report will be prepared for the Coroner.

A rising number of Australian boys are being blackmailed into paying "impossibly" high sums of money to online predators who have masqueraded as a teenage girl to lure them into sending nude photos and compromising videos.

The twist of demanding cash was a grim new tactic increasingly being used by international sex offenders on unsuspecting and vulnerable minors and teens, the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation warned.

Reports involving boys who had been groomed into producing explicit images and then extorted for money have more than quadrupled over the past year, according to Australian Federal Police.

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"Tactics can vary, but child sex offenders commonly pose as girls and befriend boys via social media platforms, image-sharing apps or online games," AFP Commander for the ACCCE Hilda Sirec said, explaining the techniques used to target victims.

Once the pair connected, the "girl" would request they communicate privately and engage in sexualised conversations before sending explicit images of her fake self, which had often been sourced from a victim of previous offending.

The boy is then be asked to send nude images or videos in return.

Sirec said the predator might also manipulate the boy into engaging in explicit activity on camera, which was secretly recorded.

"These predators reveal they had footage of the child in compromising positions and demand money in return for not sharing the vision with family and friends or posting it online," she said.

"We have seen predators initially demanding an impossibly large sum of money, then negotiating with the victim on a lower amount they could actually pay."

Hiding the crime from their families, victims will often make payment by bank transfer, in online games, gift cards or cryptocurrencies.

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Once that money was paid, the predator would demand even more money, she said.

Any images and videos sent by minors will often end up on child abuse material forums on the dark web.

"They are not deterred by the age of the victim," Sirec said.

"They care only about the profit they can make."

Law enforcement agencies around the world are seeing a rise in the number of boys being blackmailed for money, and the AFP has identified a growing trend of self-produced child exploitation material – where young people are coerced to take naked pictures of themselves and send those images via email or text.

"These crimes have devastating effects on children and their families," Sirec said.

"These offenders are very manipulative and they will threaten and frighten children to get what they want, including telling victims they will be in trouble with law enforcement if they speak up."

Cases of sexual extortion involving children (under the age of 18) can be reported to accce.gov.au/report or Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

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A mother has pleaded for the return of the wheelchair-accessible van she uses to transport her 14-year-old son after it was stolen from their home in Melbourne's south-east.

The van was stolen from a Glen Huntly home, at 4.25am this morning.

The specialised Mercedes vehicle has been modified for Jude Tregaskiss, who lives with a physical disability.

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The theft has left the family devastated, Jude's mum Georgie Osborne saying it is so much more than just a vehicle.

"I told Jude when he first woke up this morning and he burst into tears. So that was quite heartbreaking," she said.

"It's his freedom machine, really.

"It gives him access to the world and access to the community. And it enables him to go wherever he wants to go."

It took the family years to get the specialised 2018 silver Mercedes V2-20, which has the registration "1PA 3CF".

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"Fortunately he does have NDIS funding, and they funded the modification of the vehicle," Osborne said.

"But that only happens once so I'm really unsure what the future is for a dude and his car."

Police say initial reports have been taken and officers have attended the scene and are investigating.

Local units have been made aware and are keeping an eye out for the van.

"I'm just begging you please don't hurt his car and bring it back to us as soon as possible," Osborne said.