News

Fortnight of frosty mornings in Canberra

Canberra has enjoyed a brief break from an ongoing run of freezing mornings, but temperatures will plummet again from tomorrow.

Repetitive intrusions of cold air from the Southern Ocean have caused outbreaks of wintry weather across southeastern Australia over the last couple weeks.

A particularly cold few days over the King’s Birthday long weekend saw snow falling across parts of Victoria, Tasmania, NSW and the ACT.

Since that long weekend cold snap, large areas of southeastern Australia have experienced clearer skies and lighter winds associated with a slow-moving high pressure system. These conditions have been ideal for overnight cooling leading to frosty minimum temperatures.

Canberra’s minimums have dropped below 0°C on 15 of the last 20 mornings, including a 7-day stretch up to Monday this week:

• June 10: -1.6°C
• June 11: -3.7°C
• June 12: -4.6°C
• June 13: -5.5°C
• June 14: -4.1°C
• June 15: -1.0°C
• June 16: -1.5°C

This prolonged stretch of frosty nights was interrupted briefly on Monday night into Tuesday morning as increased wind and cloud only allowed the temperature to drop to 3.9°C.

However, this respite from the cold mornings won’t last long, with temperatures set to dive below 0°C once again for the rest of this week.

Canberra is forecast to register another five mornings below 0°C between Wednesday and Sunday, which will make it 12 out of 13 days in a row below zero. The coldest mornings will be Thursday and Friday, when the mercury is predicted to reach -4°C but could go lower, particularly on Thursday.

Image: Forecast minimum temperature over southeastern Australia on Thursday, June 19, 2025.

This week’s cold mornings will take Canberra’s tally of sub-zero minimums to 17 by Sunday, which is above the long-term average of 13 for the whole month of June.

Canberra’s longest run of consecutive minimums below 0°C was 22 days from late May until the middle of June of 1957.