Unprecedented cold for the month of May in Australia
Australia is living in an era of exceptional coldness that confuses the scientific community. The month of May 2023 set more than 100 historical cold records at many measurement stations, refuting the forecasts of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology which predicted a hot and dry climate.
areas most affected by frost
Early snowfall affected the Australian Alps, located in the southeastern part of the continent, which turned out to be plentiful and more than a month before the normal start of the snow season. Sydney experienced exceptionally cold weather in May, the coldest in 53 years, with an average temperature of +15.0°C, the lowest for the month since 1970.
Cities like Brisbane grapple with unusual weather
Brisbane, located in Queensland on the central coast of eastern Australia, was not immune from this cold spell. The average nighttime minimum temperature was +11.8°C, about 2°C lower than the monthly average, making this May the coldest month in 29 years.
The thermal anomaly is also in central Australia
In central Australia, the monthly deviations in low temperatures were more than 5 degrees Celsius below normal, making autumn 2023 one of the coldest on record. On May 29, Claremont Airport recorded a minimum temperature of -0.2 °C, which is a historical record for the region, surpassing the absolute zero set on May 5, 2014.
An unexpected phenomenon prolongs the cold season
Contrary to all predictions of mathematical climate models, the cold season in Australia has been getting longer for the past 40 years. In some areas, the frost season has been extended for a month or more. New South Wales has had an average of 5 days of frost each year since 1960. This trend is likely related to Antarctica having more severe winters on average, making cold air masses from the south colder, but in For the time being, this is just a hypothesis.
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