Sydney Climate Update

We’re just coming out of what felt like a freezing cold winter, it seemed like it was bitter and dark for so long. But when it comes to accuracy human skin and brain cells are really terrible at remembering and comparing the weather. Lucky for us we have the data!

Cold and wet at the Mt Tomah botanical gardens

The BOM have updated their long term climate data again. This time we’re in for a treat, we have updates to temperature, sea level and rainfall. Looking at the maximum and minimum monthly temperature averages we have indeed had some cold months. The July average minimum of 8C is the coldest since 2002 when it was 7.9C, and looking back 30 years only 1995 was colder. The mean maximum for July was cool but many years have been cooler over the past 30 years. 2013 and 2014 were quite warm by comparison though, maybe that’s why it felt cold this year. As we’ve only got up to July we can’t compare moving averages yet. For sea levels the short term averages actually show a drop in 2014. The 5yr and above moving averages still show an unmistakable upward trend. Rainfall averages are up, I don’t recall it being particularly wet though, so much for memory.