Unseasonably warm weather swept across the eastern states this weekend, with Sydney hitting 25.2C on Sunday, with high temperatures set to continue.
The unusual warm winter weather comes as global temperatures shattered records this month, with July on track to be the hottest month ever recorded, according to the World Meteorological Organization.
Sydney hit 25.2C on Sunday afternoon, with even higher temperatures in the western suburbs, with Penrith and Bankstown reaching 26C by 2.30pm. On Saturday the city hit 22C, after 24.4C on Friday - the highest temperature so far this month.
“Parts of inland eastern Australia are pushing up to around eight degrees above normal, but we’re also seeing widespread areas of between two and six degrees above average through much of eastern Australia,” Hines said.
“There’ll be no notable cooling for the country until Wednesday, when we get a cold burst of air into the south-west of the country behind a cold front, which will knock temperatures down through most of Western Australia and then they will spread across the southern states,” Hines said.
It appears to be due to warm ocean temperatures and the negative southern annular mode. Polar vortex is contracted, which means we aren’t getting hit by the big cold fronts we usually get. There’s a big fuck off high pressure system that’s blocking all of it. Often that high pressure system sits with its right edge on our coast and we get cool southerlies, not this month however, it’s extending right over the Tasman Ocean :(