The word on the street seems unanimous — it feels like one of the coldest winters in living memory.

This frigid impression is supported by reports of icy morning windscreens in our largest cities, snow across the ranges, and frozen lakes in Tasmania.

Temperatures have dropped so low in Melbourne, the city’s 5 million residents have collectively shivered through their coldest June and July in decades.

So was the Bureau of Meteorology’s (BOM) prediction of above-average temperatures off the mark, or are we just acclimatised to last year’s warmest winter on record?

June and July both warmer than average

Let’s start with Australia as a whole. 

Averaging minimums and maximums across the nation reveals a temperature through June and July that was 0.7 degree Celsius above the 1961-1990 baseline average.

This figure may seem surprising, and while it appears to conclusively resolve the issue and condone the BOM, it doesn’t tell the full story.

And that’s because the high national anomaly is due mostly to an unusually warm June and July across the sparsely populated western half of the country.

Across the east, where it was also predicted to be warmer than average and where most Australians reside, temperatures have been colder. And some pockets have even managed to record temperatures a touch below average.

So was the BOM wrong for half of the country? 

Eastern Australia, despite the snow, frost and ice, was still 0.55C warmer than the 1961-1990 average during the past two months, including an above-average mean for all states and territories, apart from Tasmania.

For the vast majority of Australia, it’s therefore safe to conclude the BOM was accurate in forecasting a mild winter, and considering we still have another four weeks left in August, there’s every chance the positive anomalies could climb even higher by season’s end.

Warmer than normal but cold for 21st century

The impression of cold weather has therefore most likely arisen from our recent memories of less harsh winters; a feeling perhaps enhanced by the unprecedented heat from last year.

Looking further back through the archives shows only one year (2022) across the past decade produced a colder start to winter for Australia than 2024.

And if we only analyse eastern states, this winter is on track to be the second coldest (again behind 2022) across the past 12 years.

Capital cities’ temperatures well below 2023

When ranking a season’s weather, the typical value calculated for comparison is the mean temperature, which takes the average of daily minimum and maximum temperatures.

Using this measure, all capitals apart from Perth have seen a significant decrease in temperatures compared to last winter, ranging from a 0.6C to 1.7C.

Despite the relatively cool conditions, most capitals have still recorded temperatures comfortably above the long-term average, and all the cities except for Melbourne and Adelaide were colder in 2022.

Melbourne’s mean of 10.4C may be slightly above the long-term average, but it is still the coldest start to winter since 1989.

Away from the CBD, Melbourne suburbs less impacted by the built-up environment observed temperatures nearly 1C below average, also the coldest in decades.

Adelaide’s mean temperature came in 0.1C above the long-term average, the coldest in four years.

Sydney’s mean June and July temperature of 13.6C was 0.9C above the long-term average and 0.3C warmer than the corresponding period in 2022.

Precipitation near normal but wet August looms

With no major climate drivers active, it’s no surprise rain across Australia has been close to average.

The national mean precipitation through June and July was 45.7 millimetres — less than a millimetre above the average of 44.8mm.

After a slow start to the ski season, snow across the alps has recovered to near normal, with a depth measured by Snowy Hydro on July 30 of 124.6cm at Spencers Creek, only a few centimetres below average for this point in the season.

According to the BOM’s latest modelling, August is likely to be wetter than normal for most of Australia, with the greatest risk of above median falls landing across Western Australia and South Australia.

The wet outlook is mostly due to warm ocean temperatures off the west coast which should promote cloudbands arriving from the Indian Ocean.