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Sydney brightening up after coldest weekend in years

Skies are finally clearing in Sydney, allowing it to warm up above average after the coldest weekend in four years.

Today's sunshine enabled it to reach 19 degrees early in the afternoon, one degree above average. This is noticeably warmer than it got all weekend, which had a 15.6-degree maximum and a wind chill of 10 degrees at times.

Not only was it the coldest weekend since 2008, it was the gloomiest weekend since the start of winter with less than six hours of sunshine. This was quite a contrast to the previous weekend, which had more than three times the amount of sunshine.

Today's dry and calmer weather is at least allowing SES and volunteers to clean up after a wild few days, when 100km/h winds ripped off roofs and downed trees and powerlines.

Most of the wind damage was done on Friday, the windiest day in a year for most of Sydney and the windiest day in more than five years along the coast. Huge waves whipped up by these winds eroded sand from beaches and grounded boats.

This week will give residents some sort of normality but it will be a frustrating week. Unfortunately for most, that means going to work and missing out on the relatively warm sunshine.

It looks like a good week to at least get outside during lunchtime. Almost every lunchtime should be mostly sunny, about 20 degrees and not too windy.

Come Friday and Saturday, the weather looks like doing a u-turn again. A low pressure system, similar to the one which brought last weekend's weather, will bring strong winds, a colder change and possibly showers.

At this stage it doesn't look as windy or as wet as last Friday-to-Sunday. It should also be a shorter-lived burst of cold, blustery weather, with only one or two days days colder than the August average of 18 degrees.

- Weatherzone

© Weatherzone 2012

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