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Australia’s coldest place this Wednesday is just 100km from Queensland

Wednesday was another chilly winter morning across a large part of Australia, but one town was colder than anywhere else, and most people won’t pick where.

It wasn’t in the mainland alpine region or nearby valleys, although Falls Creek (Vic) fell to –5.8°C with Thredbo Top Station (NSW) recording –5.3°C while Canberra (ACT) endured a frigid –5.1°C after a brief break on Tuesday in its prolonged run of frosty mornings.

Nor was Wednesday morning’s coldest temperature in Tasmania. The statewide minimum was –2.4°C on kunanyi/Mt Wellington above Hobart, with some other typically chilly spots barely falling below zero due to strong overnight winds preventing cold air settling. (For example, Liawenee, which recorded a night of –12.9°C last year, was –0.4°C this morning).

The coldest place in Australia this Wednesday morning, June 18, 2025?

Glen Innes on the NSW Northern Tablelands, just 100km south of the Queensland border, where last night’s minimum was –6.7°C.

The 8000 residents of the town and nearby areas have endured quite the frosty run over the past week, with lows of –6.1°C, –6.5°C, –4.1°C, –4.8°C, –5.0°C and –3.6°C before last night’s low, which was the coldest to date in 2025.

But last night was far from the coldest temperature on record in town. Nights of –12.8°C have been recorded in both July and August at the Glen Innes Airport weather station (the town’s official station which has operated since 1996).

In 2023, Glen Innes recorded a night of –10.8°C and while that wasn’t a record, it was still the coldest temperature recorded anywhere in Australia that year.

Image: The surrounding hills rise just high enough above Glen Innes to make cold air pool in town. Source: iStock/Robert Latham.

So why are nights so cold in Glen Innes?

Two main factors are at play: climate and topography.

In terms of climate, Glen Innes tends to have dry days with cloudless nights in winter. The months from May to August are by far the driest time of year, with the colder months seeing around a third (or slightly less) of the rainfall in the town’s wettest months of November and December.

In terms of topography, the town is high and cold at an elevation around 1060m, while the airport weather station is at 1044m. But the town sits in a gentle, saucer-shaped valley, with the surrounding hills reaching up to 1300m and the nearby high point of Ben Lomond topping 1500m (not to be confused with the Tasmanian ski resort Ben Lomond).

Cold air is denser than warmer air, so on still nights, the cold air pools in the valley around the town of Glen Innes, where the air is already relatively chilly due to the elevation.

The good news for locals is that even after frigid winter nights, you often get a relatively mild maximum in the mid-teens, and that will be the case this Wednesday. Night-time temperatures will also start to moderate this week due to a slightly moister easterly influence in the general weather pattern.