Brett Dutschke, 24 Jul 2016, 5:14 AM UTC
Winter returns in a hurry
After unseasonable mid-winter warmth winter has returned in a hurry to both eastern and western Australia as temperatures drop by as much as 15 degrees in 24 hours.
From one night to the next there has been a temperature drop of 10-to-15 degrees from southern New South Wales to southern Queensland and five-to-10 degrees in parts of Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia.
Last night was 10-15 degrees colder than the previous night in parts of the South Coast, Sydney, Hunter, Northern Tablelands, Darling Downs and Granite Belt and Maranoa and Warrego.
Lake Macquarie chilled to 1.2 degrees, 15 degrees colder than the night before, its most extreme chilling in at least eight years.
Glen Innes got as cold as minus one the night after a 13-degree night. It has been 13 years since the Northern Tablelands town has become so cold after being so warm the previous night.
Other places to cool by more than 10 degrees from the previous night were Bega, Penrith, Newcastle, St George, Roma and Dalby.
It cooled by about seven degrees in Victoria's Wangaratta, South Australia's Loxton and WA's Jandakot.
Looking ahead, tonight should be five-to-10 degrees colder than last night in Western Australia's Goldfields area due to clearing cloud allowing it to cool rapidly as the sun goes down.
The extreme cooling is largely due to the near-record warmth ahead of a cold front rather than the intensity of the cold front itself. Temperatures were as much as 15-to-18 degrees above the mid-winter average, more typical of early autumn or late spring, before the cold front helped cool most areas to a typically wintery one-to-four degrees below average.
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