Sydney hit a high of 15 degrees on Tuesday afternoon, but Johnson said the strong southerly winds meant the “feels like” factor would be significantly cooler.
A healthy layer of snowfall builds up at Thredbo on Tuesday.Credit: Thredbo Resort
At 2pm the feels like temperature was a biting 6.8 degrees, less than half of the air temperature. Mid-July is the coldest time of year on average.
The cold snap comes against a backdrop of higher-than-usual global temperatures.
Last week the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service reported that June was 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and the 12-month average temperature up to June 2024 reached 1.64 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
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However, Professor Lesley Hughes from the Climate Council said this did not mean that the planet had exceeded the 1.5 degrees of warning set by the Paris Agreement.
“Usually, that would be measured over a 20-30 year timeframe, rather than just one year of data,” she said.
“We’ve just had 13 straight months of record temperatures of air temperatures, and we’ve had 15 straight months of record ocean temperatures. These are the sort of trends that we sort of expect but dread with climate change, but we will need a longer run to be sure.”
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