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A trough over western SA brings some areas of light rain. Moist onshore winds drive isolated showers over coastal parts of Qld and NSW. High pressure will maintain dry conditions over most of the country.
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Today, 1:32AM UTC
Hope on the horizon as snowless school holidays approach
The school holidays start at the end of the week for Victoria and Queensland, but people heading to the mountains will find almost no snow in what is already one of the worst starts to the Australian snow season on record. The official snow depth at Spencers Creek – the highest of three New South Wales sites where Snowy Hydro regularly measures snow throughout the cooler months – is currently zero. Image: Comparison of the 2025 snow season and the 2026 snow season to date at Spencers Creek, NSW. Source: Snowy Hydro. Only once previously, in data going back to 1954, has Spencers Creek registered a snowless reading in July. But that’s the scenario facing Australia’s snowfields with just a few days left in June 2026, with no fresh snowfalls expected before the end of the month. The 2026 season so far: too wet, too warm for natural snow June 2026 has not been a good month for Australian snow enthusiasts. A minor snowfall just before the traditional King’s Birthday long weekend early in the month brought a reading of 14.4 centimetres at Spencers Creek on June 10. But that snow has since melted or been washed away by rain in unseasonably warm temperatures. Across southeastern Australia and the Australian Alps this June, both maximum and minimum temperatures have averaged around 2-3°C above the long-term June average. For example, the average daily maximum at Victoria’s highest ski resort Mt Hotham has been 3.5°C to date in June 2026. That might sound chilly, but the long-term June average is 1.5°C. Too warm even for snowmaking Compounding the frustration for our ski resorts and their visitors is that nights have generally been too warm for snowmaking. Even this week, with the mercury falling below zero for at least four consecutive nights at alpine resorts like Perisher (NSW) and Falls Creek (Vic), the atmosphere has been a little too humid to fire up the snow guns with effect. As we explained recently in our story on how snowmaking works, cold nights aren’t the only part of the snowmaking equation. When humidity is high and the air is saturated, the tiny droplets of water sprayed out by snow guns won’t freeze even if the temperature is slightly below zero. READ MORE: Snowmaking begins in Australia: but how does it work? Quite simply, there have been too few influxes of cool air from the Southern Ocean to produce snowfalls or even suitable conditions for snowmaking across Australia’s alpine region during June. This has been due largely to blocking high pressure systems forcing the band of westerlies and their snow-producing cold fronts further south than usual – a typical set-up when we are in a positive phase of the Southern Annular Mode (SAM). READ MORE: Strongest positive SAM in three years – what does this mean for Australia's weather? Are any lifts open in Australian ski resorts now? Image: A very popular strip of "snow" created by an ice factory snowmaking system. Source: Mtbuller.com.au. There’s a ski lift or two open on the beginner runs at Thredbo (NSW), Perisher (NSW) and Mt Buller (Vic) but that’s about it. Mt Buller and Thredbo have both benefited from a new type of snowmaking infrastructure generally called "ice factory" snowmaking or "all-weather" snowmaking. Instead of spraying out a mixture of compressed air and water into the freezing night air, you make crushed ice inside a giant refrigerated unit that looks like a shipping container, then spread it out onto the slopes through a hose. Technically it’s ice, not snow, but its texture is almost indistinguishable from natural or snowmaking snow once numerous skis or snowboards have slid across it. When is a significant snowfall likely to arrive? The good news is that models are starting to align towards the probability of a snowy system arriving a few days into July. Image: Long-range temperature anomalies forecast for Australia on Saturday, July 4, 2026. Source: Tropical Tidbits. As the image above shows, temperatures will at last be below average across southeastern Australia by about July 4, after weeks when that part of the country was consistently red (warmer than usual) most days and nights. That’s a pointer to the coming snowy system, although how much moisture is associated with the potential cold outbreak remains to be seen. But for the next week or so, the picture remains bleak, and indeed yet more rain will be a feature of the weather in the alpine area in coming days. If you’re heading to the “snow”, pack the hiking boots and a raincoat too. Please check the Weatherzone snow page for the latest forecasts, live snow cams and more.
24 Jun 2026, 1:00AM UTC
Earth's oceans hit record temperatures as El Niño strengthens
Earth’s global average sea surface temperature has reached record-breaking high levels over the past week as El Niño gains strength in the tropical Pacific Ocean. According to the ECMWF’s ERA5 dataset, Earth’s global average sea surface temperature reached 20.86°C on Sunday, June 21. This was the highest value on record for this time of year, beating the 20.83°C from the same date in 2023 and 2024, which were the two warmest years on record for global ocean temperatures. Another highly-regarded dataset from NOAA – the OISST V2.1 – registered a global daily sea surface temperature of 20.97°C on June 21. This also beat that dataset’s previous record of 20.92°C from the same date in 2024. It’s important to note that these near-real-time ocean temperature values are preliminary estimates and may be revised as the data is quality-controlled. Why are the oceans so warm? Two of the main drivers behind this month’s record-breaking ocean warmth are El Niño and climate change. El Niño is associated with a large tongue of abnormally warm water in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. This year’s El Niño was declared earlier this month by NOAA and the BoM and sea surface temperatures in the central Pacific are currently about 1.7°C above the 1991-2020 average. This exceptionally warm water is helping push the global average ocean temperature to record high levels. Image: Global sea surface temperature anomalies on Sunday, June 21, 2026, according to the NOAA OISST V2.1 dataset. The polar regions shaded in black are excluded when calculating the global average ocean temperature, primarily to exclude areas covered by sea ice. In addition to the influence of El Niño, most ocean basins across the globe have been getting warmer in recent decades in response to climate change. According to NOAA, the global ocean average temperature increased by around 0.77°C from 1970 to 2025, which is about 0.14°C per decade. Image: Global ocean annual average temperature anomalies, relative to the 1901-2000 climate. The trend for the period from 1970 to 2025 is shown, during which time the temperature rose by 0.14°C per decade. Source: NOAA NCEI, Climate at a Glance / NOAAGlobalTemp What does this mean for 2027? This year’s brewing ocean warmth – underpinned by El Niño – is likely to linger beyond the end of 2026 and could push global temperatures, in both the ocean and atmosphere, to new heights in 2027. According to Dr Leon Hermanson from the UK Met Office, “there is an El Niño predicted for the end of 2026, which increases the chances of the following year, 2027, being the next record-breaking year.”
23 Jun 2026, 1:10AM UTC
Strongest positive SAM in three years – what does this mean for Australia's weather?
The Southern Annular Mode (SAM) has just reached its highest value since 2023. But what exactly does this strong positive SAM mean for Australia’s weather in the immediate future? What is the Southern Annular Mode? The SAM is one example of what meteorologists call "climate drivers". These are broad-scale processes that drive the movement of heat, wind and moisture across the oceans and atmosphere. We've all heard of El Niño (which was declared last week) and its cousin La Niña. These climate drivers are associated with shifts in sea surface temperatures and wind and cloud across the equatorial Pacific Ocean. The SAM is a climate driver which influences the north-south displacement of the belt of powerful winds which flow year-round from west to east over the Southern Ocean, relative to where the belt would normally be positioned at a given time of year. The position of the belt of westerlies over the Southern Ocean has strong impacts on Australia’s weather, especially in southern and eastern parts of the country. In winter, the belt of westerlies is typically located closer to Australian latitudes, while in summer, it contracts southwards towards Antarctica. But a positive or negative SAM can shift its location. Image: How a positive SAM typically impacts Australia’s weather in winter. Source: Weatherzone. During a negative SAM in winter the band of westerlies is located closer to Australia, making cold fronts and low pressure systems more active than usual across Australia's southern states. This can enhance wind, rain and snow in southern Australia. A positive SAM in winter (see above chart) tends to have the opposite effect, forcing the westerly winds, cold fronts and low pressure systems further south than usual for this time of year, reducing their influence on Australia’s weather. While a positive SAM in winter tends to reduce the frequency of moisture-laden Southern Ocean systems pushing towards southern Australia, it does increase the chances of wet weather pushing onshore to Australia’s east coast from the Tasman Sea. The green patch in the image above illustrates this. And right on cue, a rainy spell is forecast for parts of NSW and Queensland starting later this week. What does the current strongly positive SAM mean for our weather? The SAM index reached a strongly positive value of +4.23 on June 21, which is a three-year high. That means that mean sea level pressure is currently trending higher than normal near Australia's latitudes, and the westerly wind belt that flows between Australia and Antarctica is located further south than usual for this time of year. This has been evident in the sort of weather we’ve seen lately across southeastern Australia, with fewer cold fronts, frequent blocking high pressure systems, and unseasonably warm temperatures. The last time the SAM index reached 4 (or higher) was in May 2023, when it peaked at 5.5. The values in the index are a measure of standard deviation from the norm in terms of mean sea level pressure. In very basic terms, it means we’ve seen a lot more highs than lows. Image: The trend of the SAM over the last 12 months, showing how this week’s value is the highest over that period. Source: BoM. What a positive SAM typically means for snowfalls in Australia Image: Minimal natural snow up high at Blue Cow ski area, part of Perisher resort. Thankfully, a string of cold nights is allowing snowmaking on many slopes at Australian ski resorts, enabling at least some skiing and snowboarding for the forthcoming school holidays. Source: ski.com.au. With the school holidays rapidly approaching and the ski slopes bare and grassy across most of the Australian Alps, a positive SAM is not good news for the snowfields. We already know that there’s a strong correlation between El Niño years and low snowfall in Australia. Compounding that, snow-bearing cold fronts tend to visit Australia’s shores less frequently during a positive SAM in winter. Thankfully, neither of these climate drivers prevents the occasional strong, cold, moisture-laden system from surging northwards towards Australia. So while the big picture indicators provide little cause for optimism, the day-to-day variability of individual weather systems still offers hope. Please check the Weatherzone snow page for the latest forecasts, live snow cams and more.