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Hey you there, working from home in your puffer jacket and scarf with a hot water bottle on your knee. No, it’s not just you – this weather really is cold.
A big “tongue” of wintry air has escaped from Antarctica and moved over south-eastern Australia, producing a conveyor belt of cold fronts since late May, says Weatherzone meteorologist Ben Domensino. “This prolonged period of weather is coming from the ice sheets of Antarctica.”
A cold snap weather pattern is not unusual at this time of year. Swirling air currents over Antarctica are often blown north to south, which means cold air escapes from the fringes of Antarctica and travels further north. But this particular cold tongue has become “parked” over south-eastern Australia, and is likely to be there for some time.
Melbourne is having its coldest start to June in decades – the average temperature in the city didn’t reach 15 degrees during the first week of winter, which hasn’t happened since 1985, when TV soap Neighbours premiered on Channel Seven. If this continues until at least June 14, as predicted, it would make it the city’s coldest first fortnight of winter since 1949.
Sydney had its coldest start to winter since 1989, with the temperature failing to reach 18.5 degrees in the first week of June. This week, daytime temperatures have hovered around 15 or 16 degrees all week, from lows of 7 and 8 degrees.
Even Brisbane woke to its coldest June morning in six years on Thursday, with the temperature plummeting to 5.1 degrees in the early morning.
Snow at Falls Creek in Victoria ahead of the official opening of the ski season. Credit:Falls Creek Resort
You’re probably familiar with the El Niño and La Niña weather patterns over the Pacific Ocean, which affect weather worldwide. For most of Australia, El Niño brings dry weather, while La Niña brings wet weather.
In the Indian Ocean there’s a similar climate driver called the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), which has the same impact through its “positive” and “negative” phases, respectively. This is the second year in a row of a negative IOD, which refers to the patterns of sea surface temperature. While positive dipoles are associated with dry weather, negative dipoles can bring heavy rainfall and flooding to parts of Australia.