Discussion: Australia General Weather

[ATO2]

As RWood says, the Darwin ones are friendly! I saw a TV shot of NT people on the beach drinking and watching fireworks.

[Zweatherman]

We spent 8 days (from 21st to 28th June) on the Gold Coast and the weather was superb for our entire visit. Clear warm days with nights a bit cooler but quite comfortable by our standards. Locals were saying how cold it was at nights. No wind while we were there either. We could pick out a lot of the locals, they were the ones who were rugged up while the tourists wandered around half dressed (or less )

[rainfan]

at your last comment Zweatherman.

Great that the weather was good while you were on the Gold C. That's classic winter weather for that area - very popular with Kiwis at this time of year.

Brisbane's pretty much the same but cooler where minimums are concerned (especially if there's a cold SW-W outbreak dominating).

Summer's a different story with quite excessive humidity & frequent heavy rainstorms although frequent is a word not used often nowdays (Has been over past few years).

[rainfan]

Mate flew up to the Sunshine Coast via Brisbane yesterday morning for the weekend & expecting sunshine and 23, 24 degrees. Unfortunately for him, it's not the case at all judging by text messages I've received from him:

11.10am (Yesterday) - SUNSHINE coast my foot - it's actually rainy, gloomy & only 17 degrees. Cloud is all grey making the place feel so depressed. Everytime I come up its always raining or gloomy!

8.00am Today - Still gloomy and wet - miserable! Where's the famed sunshine and 23 deg weather?!?!

I'm afraid the weather for the rest of the weekend isn't good - wet, cloudy and cold, I texted this info to him and he really flipped his lid - needless to say I won't repeat what he said re bad weather as the language was very foul

[rainfan]

A little bit of cloud can have significant impact on temperatures.

Yesterday was a prime example of this, with the maximum reaching 13.7oC in the city (Sydney), 2oC below average and the coldest maximum since August last year.

We've had a colder airmass over us on previous days, but the sun was out which helped warm the ground and air too much.

Sydney is at 34-35 degrees south latitude , which during winter can mean that as long as the sun is out, temperatures can climb very quickly. However when there's cloud the sun gets blocked out, temperatures never really climb very high.

Melbourne has this problem a lot - it's often cloudy and fairly gloomy during winter which prevents maximums from climbing very high at all.

Opposite to this is Brisbane that normally sees sunny skies during winter which means maximums regularly climb well into the 20s even during the coldest of months.

But even yesterday the cloud affected temperatures in Brisbane. The previous 3 days had maximums of 25, 23 and 22 degrees respectively but yesterday was cloudy and it only reached 20oC.

[ATO2]

That, I think is a great feature of our southern hemisphere climates at our latitudes. Here (lat 39 degrees) if it is sunny it is great in Winter. If not, even at the same temperature, it is cool or cold). I noticed when I lived in Ireland that the lack of sunlight made winter feel far worse. Even if the Sun emerged, there wasn't the heat in it.

[RWood]

Fully agree! In non-tropical climates cloudiness makes a very big difference. That's one of the reasons I've thought sunshine was a very important climate element since I was about 8 years old! I have been skating in Central Otago one July day when it was relatively balmy at about 11C, and dead calm and bright sun meant we were quite warm (damned cold that night though!). On the other hand standing at Waitangi near the foreshore on a cloudy day in Nov 1992, with a fresh easterly breeze, I felt quite cold in about 18C.

But re the winter escape - don't do things by halves! Darwin or Broome or the like are a much better bet than the Gold Coast. After a wet NZ holiday, we went to Chile a year or so later - knew damned well we wouldn't see rain or gloom in the Atacama!

[ATO2]

Originally Posted by RWood

After a wet NZ holiday, we went to Chile a year or so later - knew damned well we wouldn't see rain or gloom in the Atacama!

That's for sure!

[rainfan]

Indeed. In the winter here, can feel very nice on a clear calm sunny day but unfortunately those days often come with cold SW-W winds (which can be strong rising to gale-force every now & then) that certainly can spoil the day so when we do get a sunny day with no wind then I'm outside taking advantage of it

Alice Springs would be good for you Rwood - hardly ever rains (well almost) with plenty of sunshine

[RWood]

Yes, Alice-weather would be very suitable.