Sydney is looking like it’ll actually get a peek at summer this week with the forecast predicting the city’s first official 30-degree day in ages this week. If there’s ever a reason to take a cheeky mid-week day off, it’s this.
The city has barely recorded a temperature over 32 degrees, which is what the Bureau of Meteorology considers a “hot day”, for nearly a year. The Sydney Morning Herald reports it’s been 328 days to be exact, which is a shave behind the 339-day record set way back in 1883.
But the sun’s warmth is set to return — albeit briefly — this week and it could be a sign of scorchers to come.
Monday and Tuesday are forecast to reach a maximum of 28 degrees in the city with light easterly winds. The mercury is set to rise another couple of notches on Wednesday, bringing in a quintessential Sydney summer day: a sunny morning with a chance of an evening thunderstorm. Now that’s the kind of January energy we’ve been aching for.
Sydney. Summer.
Where did you go? #summerrain #sydney pic.twitter.com/ugfGnwFnPj— Shaynna Blaze (@ShaynnaBlaze) January 13, 2023
The BoM is predicting temperatures will drop back down to the mid-20s for the latter half of the week with rain on the radar from Thursday. Senior meteorologist Dean Narramore told the SMH the cooler summer weather is due to the way the winds are blowing.
“The Sydney area gets all its heat from the westerly winds in summer dragging continental air that’s hot towards the coast,” he said.
“There was a big lack of that last summer and it’s been similar for this spring and early summer as well.
“It’s a lack of [the] westerly or north-westerly winds that we had in 2019 and 2020 when we had weeks and weeks of those winds, and that was why we had the fires, the heat and the 45 and 48-degree days in Penrith.”
He said there’s a chance those hot winds from the west could pick up in February and March when temperatures typically rise in Sydney. Almost like one final baking blast before autumn really kicks in.
Fingers crossed the summer sun gets a bit of a look in over the next few weeks because it’s not summer unless we’ve thrown ourselves into the ocean (or a large body of water) at least three times.
