Winter in the southern hemisphere: record cold in Australia

In the southern hemisphere, the calendrical winter began on June 1st. Australia is experiencing a record cold: The last month of "autumn" was as cold as never before since records began. Does this call into question the theory of global warming?

Average temperatures in Australia dropped to record lows in May, with the fifth continent's largest metropolis, Sydney, experiencing its coldest nights in 66 years. According to media reports, more than a hundred Australian weather stations have registered the coldest May minimum temperatures since records began.

Daily minimum temperatures in May in central and eastern Australia were almost at the level of midwinter and fell by up to five degrees Celsius below average, in some cases even up to ten degrees Celsius below normal.

Records were broken in all Australian states, from the tropics to the outback and eastern Tasmania. This applied to weather stations that have been in operation for less than thirty years to long-standing stations with about a hundred years of data history.

In both Camooweal in the state of Queensland and Tamworth in New South Wales, the average minimum temperatures this May were 8.5 degrees Celsius and 2.4 degrees Celsius, respectively, the lowest level recorded since 1907.

The icy month brought frequent frosts that reached as far as tropical Queensland and the Northern Territory, as well as several snowfalls in the southeastern mountain ranges. The amount of precipitation in almost the entire country was far below the average of previous years.

The surprisingly cool end of the Australian autumn is described as unusual in the local press, noting that the records of recent decades have mostly been at the upper end of the thermometer.

In Australia itself, there is a debate about whether the record cold calls into question the theories of global warming or, on the contrary, proves the opposite. Adherents of the latter thesis argue that Australia ended up in a "cold bubble" this year. It is also necessary to wait and see how the Australian winter itself, which has just begun, will turn out. Only then will it be possible to say whether it is a postponement of the meteorological winter or a real cooling in this part of the world.

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