Australia's highest weather station is having its coldest start to winter in 18 years based on maximum temperatures.

Thredbo Top Station in NSW sits at 1,957 metres above sea level, making it the highest Automatic Weather Station operated by the Bureau of Meteorology on the Australian continent.

The average maximum temperature at Thredbo Top Station during the first 24 days of this month was just 0.3 degrees. This is 1.4 degrees below average for this time of year and makes this the site's coldest start to winter since 2000.

It may not come as a surprise that Thredbo Top Station has also registered the lowest daytime maximum temperature in Australia so far during 2018, climbing to just minus 4.5 degrees on June 16th.

But while days have been notably cold at Thredbo recently, overnight minimums have been running close to the long-term average so far this month. Top Station's lowest minimum of minus 6.9 degrees is almost three above Cooma's minus 9.5 degrees last week, which was the lowest temperature in Australia so far this year.

So how do these temperatures compare to the lowest ever recorded in Australia?

The lowest temperature on record in Australia was minus 23 degrees at Charlotte Pass, NSW on 29th June in 1994.

The lowest in Tasmania was -13 degrees, which occurred at Tarraleah Village, Butlers Gorge and Shannon on the same day in late June during 1983. Victoria's lowest temperature on record was -11.7 degrees at Falls Creek in 1970.