As any laundry-doing Sydneysider can attest, the weather in the Emerald City has been a bit all over the place recently. First, the city had its hottest March in more than 100 years, then a month’s worth of rain fell in one day. And the rollercoaster continues, as the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) has given its verdict on what's in store for Sydneysiders this winter – forecasters predict the next few months are set to be a fair bit warmer than usual.
In the BOM's latest climate outlook summary, weather data shows that the whole country is heading into what could be the warmest winter ever recorded. Days and nights are highly likely to be noticeably warmer than average, with a very strong chance that both the median maximum and minimum temperatures will be "unusually warm".
For the entire east coast of Australia, it's predicted that temperatures are four times more likely to be in the top 20 per cent of the hottest recorded between June and August. Historically, the average temperature in Sydney for this period is around nine to 17 degrees.
As for whether we'll be getting good use out of our umbrellas this winter, that’s still hard to say – with forecasters predicting rainfall that's "typical" for the June to August period (read: pretty darn sporadic) for most of the east coast, but an increased chance of above-average rainfall further inland.
We're all for keeping Sydney’s summer lifestyle going, but with weather forecasters pointing to greenhouse gas emissions as the reason for this change in climate, the high temperatures predicted for this coming winter are definitely not reason to jump for joy. In its climate outlook summary, the BOM pointed to global sea-surface temperatures being the warmest on record between April 2023 and April 2024, noting that Australia's warming climate has caused an increase in the frequency of extreme heat events.
On the plus-side, Sydneysiders will hopefully be able to save a little bit of extra cash on their heating bills – and help reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions in the process. To find out more about the Australian weather climate, go to the Bureau of Meteorology website.
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