The date is now September 1st, and it is now officially Spring. It is winter no longer as of 12:01am this morning. Basically, this was all of us as the calendar ticked over last night.
And if you were in the southern states and have been thinking it’s been a particularly brutal season, you intuition is now backed up – by SCIENCE!
The Bureau of Meteorology is now able to put official stamps like “coldest winter since…” on things now that the season has drawn to a close. And it’s all confirming what we’ve known to be true for three months now: Holy balls it’s been cold as shit.
Victoria‘s weather ranks this winter as the coldest one it’s seen in 26 years, dating back to 1989. The state’s epicentre in Melbourne felt an average high temperature of just 13.9 degrees. And despite the fact that it’s been quite a bit – including during last week’s tram strike which managed to grind just about everyone’s gears – in actual fact it’s been one of the driest winters the city has seen in quite a while, with just 120mm falling for the season – down 30mm from the usual average.
It gets worse if you’re from further south. Tasmania shivered through it’s coldest season in FIFTY YEARS. Snow fell to sea level on the Apple Isle for the first time since 1986. Though state experienced a bumper ski season at places like Mount Field and Ben Lomond, the unusually heavy snowfall also made it difficult for some highland communities to receive deliveries of supplies. Temperatures across the state were below average consistently, whilst rainfall was also scarce – with some areas of the state experiencing as much as a whopping 150mm below the average seasonal falls. The season was actually the sixth coldest on record, and the chilliest one since 1966.
But if you were in Canberra, apart from navigating maximum roundabouts, not only did you just cop the coldest winter in some 15-odd years, but you felt the wettest one in a decade as well. Our nation’s capital shivered through 53 below-zero mornings – 10 more than normal. And at the airport, some 158mm of rain was recorded for the season, which is nearly a quarter above the usual average.
Elsewhere, Adelaide also had its coldest and driest winter in some 5 years, with rainfall almost half what’s normally expected. Sydney suffered its longest cold snap in 26 years during an 11 day run of nope in late July. Hell, snow even fell in parts of Queensland, for pete’s sake.
In fact, if you are anywhere in the country apart from Western Australia – which believe it or not actually got served a warmer than normal winter – you have all now successfully survived the bleakest winter in many moons. Congratulations, you made it.
