Australian Weather

Today, 4:30AM UTC

The Southern Hemisphere’s winter solstice will occur this Sunday, marking the shortest day of the year in Australia based on daylight hours. The winter solstice marks the moment either of Earth’s poles reaches its furthest tilt away from the Sun. When this happens, the hemisphere oriented away from the Sun experiences its shortest day of the year based on the amount of time between sunrise and sunset. The 2026 winter solstice for the Southern Hemisphere will occur at 8:25 am UTC (6:25 pm AEST) on Sunday, June 21. Australia's capital city day lengths will range from about nine hours in Hobart to just over 11 hours and 20 minutes in Darwin. This almost 2.5-hour difference is due to the difference in latitude between southern and northern Australia. Image: Sunrise, sunset and day length times on the date of the 2026 winter solstice. Source: Weatherzone. While the winter solstice doesn’t have any direct influence on the weather, it does mark the start of the astronomical winter in the Southern Hemisphere. The long nights surrounding the solstice also offer a good opportunity to view things in the night sky, including this month’s full moon on the night of June 30. Following the 2026 winter solstice on Sunday, days will start to get longer, and nights will get shorter in Australia. This trend will continue for the following six months until the date of the summer solstice in late-December.

Today, 3:05AM UTC

A vast cloudband stretching across Australia has brought heavy rain to parts of South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania overnight, and rain continues to tumble down this Tuesday. This is a classic winter system known as a northwest cloudband – a broad layer of cloud which can stretch like a sash across the continent, fed by Indian Ocean moisture. READ MORE: What is a northwest cloudband? Image: Combined satellite and radar image for SE Australia at 11 am (AEST) on Tuesday, June 16, 2026. Source: Weatherzone. Notable rainfall totals from this system in the 24 hours to 9am Tuesday included: 50.4 mm at Ashton in the Adelaide Hills. 32 mm at Edenhope in Victoria’s relatively dry Wimmera region, with a state high of 37.2mm at the rural locality of Booroopki, a few kilometres north of Edenhope, near the SA border. 21.4 mm at Adelaide’s official West Terrace/ngayirdapira weather station, the heaviest daily total to date in 2026. Numerous falls between 10 mm and 20 mm in northwestern Tasmania, a region which often receives the state’s heaviest rainfall totals when moisture streams down from the northwest. The effect of the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) on the current weather system The IOD is an index used to monitor sea surface temperatures across the tropical Indian Ocean. It can have a strong influence on weather patterns across Australia, especially when northwest cloudbands form. Northwest cloudbands – like the one affecting Australia’s weather this Tuesday – typically produce more rain across Australia during a negative phase of the IOD. A negative IOD occurs when there are cooler-than-average sea surface temperatures in the western tropical Indian Ocean near the Horn of Africa, and warmer-than-average surface water in the eastern tropical Indian Ocean, near Indonesia. Currently, the IOD is in a neutral phase, not a negative phase. But as today’s weather shows, that doesn’t mean we don’t also see moisture-laden northwest cloudbands during a neutral IOD. With the current warmer-than-average sea surface temperatures to Australia’s northwest, and a low pressure system centred over the Great Australian Bight drawing moisture southwards, key ingredients are in place for today’s widespread wet weather. Image: Hourly graphs for Adelaide, SA, on the Weatherzone app. Heavy rain either side of the cloudband in WA, NSW There’s a lot going on with the weather in Australia today. If you look at the satellite and radar loop below, you can see how moisture streamed down from the northwest (as mentioned above), while parts of the West Australian coast saw heavy rain from the southeast – as in, from the completely opposite direction, as air rotated around the low in the bight. Image: 6-hour combined satellite and radar for parts of Australia near the Great Australian Bight to 10 am (AWST) on Tuesday, June 16, 2026. At least 10 weather stations in and around the picturesque coastal WA town of Esperance recorded 24-hour rainfall totals exceeding 50mm in the 24 hours to 9am this Tuesday. Esperance itself recorded 60.8 mm, which was within a whisker of the June daily rainfall record of 61mm, while Esperance Airport recorded a state high of 89.2 mm. Meanwhile the highest official 24-hour rainfall total in Australia was 103 mm at Bellingen (Crystal Creek), just inland from Coffs Harbour on the NSW Mid North Coast. That downpour was caused by moisture pushing onshore from the Tasman Sea overnight. The moisture was reinforced by anomalously warm waters off the coast, as well as southeasterly winds extending up into the mid-levels, allowing a steady stream of showers to accummulate over the region. More rain likely across a wide area, no significant snow on the horizon As the low pressure system and associated cold front currently centred over the Great Australian Bight track slowly east, further rain can be expected across large parts of inland and eastern Australia in coming days, as well as in Tasmania. Generally mild temperatures for winter will prevail across the southeast until Friday or Saturday, when an injection of cooler air will arrive from the south, albeit a relatively weak one. At this stage, there’s the potential for only light snowfalls at higher elevations in the end-of-week system. Please check the latest on the Weatherzone snow page.