From Tasmania to Queensland, minimum temperatures of about 5C below seasonal averages are setting the tone for a bracing week ahead across eastern Australia.
On Monday morning, the temperature at Brisbane airport dipped to 2.7C – the coldest observation at the site since 2014. Tasmania’s Ouse had its chilliest start since 2015, with the temperature sitting at just -6.4C.
Adelaide was 2.7C, well below its average minimum of 7.6C, while the South Australian town of Yunta was -4.5C – a good 7C below its average minimum of 3.1C.
Polar air travelling on the heels of a cold front that moved across the south-east of the country has combined with clear and settled conditions to create the frosty blast, the Bureau of Meteorology’s Angus Hines said.
“It’s just a perfect recipe for cold overnight temperatures,” Hines said, particularly around inland and elevated areas.
In Sydney, the “feels like” temperature dropped to 1.2C at around 1pm on Monday, as high wind speeds gave a biting edge to the actual temperature of 13C, Weatherzone’s Ben Domensino said.
Feeling the chill in #Sydney today? The 'feels like' temperature at Sydney Airport dropped to 1.2°C shortly after 1pm due to wind speeds above 50km/h and a dew point below 4°C. Most of lunchtime felt like 1 to 2°C in this part of the city. 🥶 pic.twitter.com/fxUT1xlFdJ
— Ben Domensino (@Ben_Domensino) July 29, 2024
On the Victorian ski field of Mount Hotham, the mercury sat at an exceptionally chilly -8.8C on Monday, the coldest July morning in 34 years, according to Weatherzone’s Andrew Miskelly.
Mount Hotham, VIC equalled its lowest July temperature in 34 years of records this morning, reaching -8.8 °C (June, August and September records are lower). Gale-force southerlies made for apparent temperatures below -25 °C. The weather station looks like this when not icebound. pic.twitter.com/w090qjrE7j
— Andrew Miskelly (@andrewmiskelly) July 28, 2024
In Young in New South Wales, the day started at -4.3C, notably lower than its usual 1.1C July average. Canberra was -5.6C below its average of 0C, while Victoria’s Hopetoun, where the season’s typical temperature is about 3.2C, was -3.5C, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.
Monday night into Tuesday morning was expected to be even cooler, with very cold overnight lows expected to remain until Friday or Saturday, while daytime temperatures will return to average by about Wednesday.
The blast is unlikely to be the last of the winter’s cold snaps, Hines said.
“We’re not even at the start of August – definitely we’ve still got the capability to have another pulse of cold conditions before we start to see the climb into spring,” he said.
Though too early to accurately predict, a shift in the Southern Annular Mode, which connects southern Australia’s weather patterns to those in the Antarctic, is likely to play a key role in how the remainder of the winter will look.
It is also possible that the current cool weather is related to a separate rare weather event in the Antarctic. In recent weeks, stratospheric warming has been recorded over the south pole, with sudden warming raising high-altitude temperatures by tens of degrees in just a few days.
That warm stratospheric air, 30-40km above the Earth’s surface, can cause cooler air lower in the atmosphere to move north. The Antarctic conditions were predicted to cause heightened winter weather on the east coast of Australia.
