It has been the coldest begin to winter in many years for components of Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, and temperatures are anticipated to stay cooler with a polar air mass predicted to comb by all the nation within the coming week.
Dean Narramore, a senior meteorologist on the Bureau of Meteorology, mentioned many components of south-eastern Australia skilled temperatures up to now week between 2C and 5C beneath common for winter.
A number of areas skilled file chilly June temperatures, together with Thangool and Tambo in Queensland, in addition to Omeo, Viewbank and Echuca in Victoria, Narramore mentioned.
Omeo’s -6.4C on Wednesday was its lowest June temperature in 29 years, whereas Melbourne airport’s 0.2C was its equal coldest June morning in 28 years, based on Ben Domensino, a meteorologist at Weatherzone.
Melbourne and Sydney shivered by their coldest morning of the yr on Wednesday, whereas Thursday morning’s low of -8.3C at Mount Hotham airport was the bottom temperature anyplace in Victoria since 2018, Domensino mentioned.
“South-eastern parts of the country have seen their coldest start to winter for a number of years, probably going back to some time in the teens,” Narramore mentioned. The BoM mentioned it might not have extra precise figures till the tip of the month.
The colder climate was pushed by a low stress system within the Tasman Sea for the previous week mixed with a excessive stress system within the Nice Australian Bight.
“Those two systems together have brought a long period of southerly winds right across southern and eastern Australia, and that’s gone all the way up into northern parts of Queensland last week, and that’s why we’ve seen frost all the way up through Mackay and inland parts of Townsville,” Narramore mentioned.
The low stress areas over the Tasman introduced cool southerly winds up in direction of jap Australia and carried showers to jap Victoria and the NSW coast, together with Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong on Saturday.
Frosts have been predicted by each state besides Western Australia on Sunday morning, together with the Alice Springs space and southern Northern Territory, adopted by a sunny day for a lot of the nation on Monday, Narramore mentioned.
One other polar outbreak would come subsequent week as chilly fronts transfer by the south-eastern components of the nation from Tuesday by to Thursday, bringing showers, gusty winds and cooler situations, Narramore mentioned.
The chilly entrance may additionally deliver 10-20cm of snow to a lot of Victoria and NSW Alpine areas.
One other greater climate system would transfer by Western Australia later subsequent week and cross many of the nation on the finish of subsequent week and into subsequent weekend, he mentioned.
“Early next week, particularly through western and central parts of the country, we’ll see another burst of colder weather [affecting] almost the entire country on Tuesday and Wednesday.”
After the winter solstice on Friday, which was the shortest day of the yr in Australia, every day from now till summer time will deliver extra daylight.
