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A firm high and dry air is bringing a very cold morning to NSW and southern Qld. Onshore southeasterlies around the high bring a few showers to east Qld. Cool west to southwesterly winds between cold fronts is bringing a few showers to southwest WA and Tas.
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18 Jun 2025, 6:44AM UTC
Indonesia's Lewotobi Laki-Laki volcano eruption seen from space
Lewotobi Laki-Laki, on the island of Flores, Indonesia, erupted on the afternoon of Tuesday, June 17, sending a large plume of volcanic ash and gases into the atmosphere. Image: Volcanic Ash plume visible on satellite imagery on the morning of Wednesday, June 18, 2025. Lewotobi Laki-Laki and Perempuan The Lewotobi twin volcano is located on the eastern reaches of the island of Flores, Indonesia, approximately 800 kilometres east of Bali, Indonesia, and 1,000 kilometres northwest of Darwin, Australia. Image: Map showing the location of the Lewotobi twin volcanoes in Indonesia along with major flight routes over the region. The two peaks that make up the volcano complex are Lewotobi Laki-Laki and Lewotobi Perempuan, or male and female Lewotobi, respectively. Of the husband-and-wife pair, Laki-Laki has been most active recently. Ongoing eruptions since 2023 have displaced thousands of people, with a major eruption in November 2024 killing 9 people, destroying homes and disrupting international aviation. Laki-Laki erupted again in March and May of 2025, once again displacing people and disrupting aviation. Image: Mt Lewotobi during a lesser eruption in June 2024. Source: iStock / Jimmy Tandjoeng The Pacific ring of fire encompasses the Indonesian archipelago, with 130 active volcanoes in the country. Over 1,000 eruptions have been recorded over the course of its history, with a deep cultural and spiritual lore attached to local volcanoes. Aviation Code Red Image: Enhanced infrared satellite imagery on Tuesday, June 17, 2025, at the time of the Laki-Laki Eruption. At 5:35pm local time on Tuesday, June 17, 2025, Laki-Laki erupted once again, sending a volcanic ash plume high into the atmosphere. While there are no reports of deaths or damage to property, the ash reached over 10 kilometres into the atmosphere. BREAKING: Mount Lewotobi Laki-laki in Indonesia has erupted ???? "There was an eruption of Mount Lewotobi Laki-laki on Tuesday, June 17, 2025, at 17:35 WITA with an observed ash column height of ± 10,000 m above the peak (± 11,584 m above sea level)," said the Volcano Observation… pic.twitter.com/lpWZnHQwk1 — Volcaholic ???? (@volcaholic1) June 17, 2025 The Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre in Darwin has issued an Aviation Code Red for the area, prompting domestic and international flights to avoid the region. No major airport disruptions have affected nearby tourism centres like Bali, but ash continues to be expelled into the atmosphere at this stage. Image: Satellite imagery of enhanced volcanic ash is expelled from Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Tuesday, June 17, 2025. The dangers of volcanic ash to aviation Volcanic ash is made of small pieces of rock, crystal and glass. Aircraft unfortunate enough to fly through volcanic ash suffer from abrasion similar to sand blasting, which is damaging to windshields and the leading edges of the wings. Glass particles in the ash melts in the engine, which can block the air flow and cause the engine to stall when the molten glass re-solidifies in the turbine. Ash clouds are often projected tens of thousands of metres into the atmosphere over broad areas surrounding the eruption. Since most commercial jets cruise at around 8,000 to 11,000 metres, this makes them highly susceptible to damage from ash clouds. The hazard was little understood until 1982 when a British Airways jet flying to Australia lost power in all four engines over Indonesia before regaining power at a lower altitude (where the atmosphere was free of ash). The problem occurred again as the jet ascended, so the pilot descended again and eventually pulled off a difficult emergency landing in Jakarta with minimal visibility due to the sand blasting effect on the windshield. There’s a documentary about that flight on YouTube.
18 Jun 2025, 2:06AM UTC
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.
17 Jun 2025, 11:53PM UTC
Australia enters darkest week of the year
The seven days from now until next Tuesday will be the darkest week of the year across Australia. The Southern Hemisphere’s winter solstice will occur on Saturday, June 21, marking Australia’s shortest day and longest night of the year based on sunlight hours. Counting the three days on either side of the solstice date gives you the seven-day period with the least amount of daylight during the year. Australia’s darkest week of 2025 will run from Wednesday, June 18 to Tuesday, June 21. What is the winter solstice? The winter solstice marks the date on which Earth’s Northern or Southern Hemisphere reaches its furthest tilt away from the Sun. Each hemisphere has a winter solstice spaced half a year apart. The Southern Hemisphere’s winter solstice occurs in late June and the Northern Hemisphere’s winter solstice occurs in late December. When the Southern Hemisphere reaches its winter solstice, the Sun appears to be at its lowest point in the sky when viewed from south of Earth’s equator. This is also the shortest day of the year based on time between sunrise and sunset. The table below shows the daylength for Australia’s capital cities on this year’s winter solstice. Image: Daylength for Australia's capital cities on the date of the 2025 winter solstice. Following the winter solstice on Saturday, days will start to become longer, and nights will become shorter across Australia. This trend will continue for six months until the Southern Hemisphere’s summer solstice on December 21-22.