1 Mar 2013

Hottest summer on record for Australia

Weather Presenter

Australia has just had its hottest summer on record, according to figures released by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.

Australian Desert

Average temperatures across the country were 28.6C, which is 1.1C above normal and exceeds the previous record set in summer 1997-1998 by just over 0.1C.

The most extreme heat of the summer season occurred during a heatwave that hit the country during the first three weeks of January – a time when south eastern parts of Australia were ravaged by wildfires.

While there were a few very wet spells during the summer, notably along the east coast due to ex-tropical cyclone Oswald, it was intense heat that dominated the headlines.

The Bureau of Meteorology uses 112 locations in long-term climate monitoring, and 14 of these had their hottest day on record during summer 2012/13 – the greatest number in a single summer.

Two cities, Sydney and Hobart, had record-breaking temperatures, with 45.8C and 41.8C respectively. The highest temperature of the summer was in Moomba, south Australia, when the mercury hit 49.6C on 12 January.

This record-breaking summer has bucked the trend of the last few when extreme rainfall has been the main feature of Australia’s weather – mainly due to La Nina events increasing the amount of warmth and moisture in the western Pacific Ocean.

The summer of 2010/11 was very wet, with Australia having rainfall 70 per cent above average, making it the second wettest summer ever.

A report by CSIRO, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Australia’s national science agency, notes that each decade has been warmer than the previous decade since the 1950s.

It also adds that with the probability of extreme weather events increasing in the future, hotter summers are likely to become increasingly common later this century.