Australia’s summer is virtually over and according to the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) it is the first season in which temperatures exceeded two degrees Celsius above the long-term averages, making it the hottest summer on record.
With one more day to round out the official season, it is clear Australia has eclipsed the previous hottest summer set in 2012-13, Dr David Jones, manager of BoM’s climate monitoring, told Fairfax Media.
“It’s been extreme and certainly something we haven’t seen before,” Dr Jones said. “It’s been dry and intensely hot right through summer.”
While final temperatures for February will be set today, maximum and mean temperatures will come in about two degrees above the 1961-90 period BoM uses as its benchmark.
Fairfax Media reports that while minimums were less extreme, they will eclipse the previous record for overnight temperatures set one year earlier.
The previous record summers were about one degree warmer than the average, underscoring how anomalously warm the summer just ending has been.
The heat was widespread, with New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia among the regions posting a record-hot summer.
December and January were the hottest on record nationally and February will come in among the top five warmest.
January alone registered eight of the 10 hottest days recorded based on area-averaged heat.
Rainfall was about 30 per cent below average, making it the driest summer since 1982-83, a season affected by a strong El Nino event.
Fairfax Media reports conditions in the Pacific were at near-El Nino levels this summer, too, but temperatures were about one degree higher than that season 36 years ago.
Despite the heat and intensifying drought, the bushfire season has been less severe than might otherwise have been expected given the temperatures. Fires were largely in areas remote from the main cities, such as in Tasmania, east Gippsland and northern NSW.
“We had very stagnant conditions, with sub-tropical or even tropical heat over the whole country for most of the three months,” Dr Jones told Fairfax Media.
“There were almost no fronts and a lack of cold coming up from the south.”
Only a couple of regions had notably wet spells, such as north-western Victoria in December and the record rainfall that drenched much of north Queensland in an area from Cloncurry to Mt Isa and east to Townsville.
Most of northern Australia, however, had “a very poor wet season”, Dr Jones said.
The bureau will release its updated seasonal outlook for autumn today.
Its initial report two weeks ago indicated above-average heat and below-average rainfall would extend into the March-May period for much of the country.
BoM will also release its full summer report, including for the state capitals, tomorrow.
