It was seriously cold by local seasonal standards in Brisbane on the first day of December. Indeed, in daylight hours the temperature never topped 18 degrees, which made it a cold Brisbane day for any time of the year.

So was it a record?

Why is the first day of summer so cold?? 🥶 This doesn’t feel like Brisbane

— Bec Baker 👩‍💻👩‍ðŸ�« (@MsBecBaker) December 1, 2022

• Brisbane's coldest December day on record was way back on December 2, 1889, when the mercury struggled its way to a top of just 18.9°C.
• Thursday, December 1, 2022 was more than a degree colder than that all day long between sunrise and sunset on Thursday. In fact the highest temp in that period was just 17.8°C.

Yet Thursday wasn't Brisbane's coldest December day on record, and here's why

For meteorological purposes, the BoM classifies an Australian weather "day" as the 24-hour period between 9 am one day and 9 am the next day. You have to draw the line somewhere, and that's how it's drawn here (many countries do mignight to midnight).

Thursday's Brisbane cold was caused by a combination of winds with a southerly aspect, and a persistent cloud cover with showers which stopped the sun warming things up.

It was bloody cold all day in Brisbane!

— Carmen Seaby (@carmen_seaby) December 1, 2022

As the clouds began to clear overnight, the temp warmed to a max of 22.3°C at 8:34 am on Friday morning That, right there, was your Thursday daily maximum, folks.

Yes, Thursday's maximum technically occurred on Friday morning, which sounds a little counter-intuitive to say the least. But as mentioned, "meteorological Thursday" is the 24-hour period between 9 am Thursday and 9 am Friday.

So Thursday, December 1, 2002 will NOT go down as Brisbane's coldest December day, even though the temp stayed below 18°C during daylight hours on Thursday.

If you had Brisbane as the coldest mainland capital city at lunchtime on the first day of summer, you definitely just won weather bingo https://t.co/PQkeHcfXGj pic.twitter.com/vfEHXqh1fU

— Anthony Sharwood â�„ï¸� (@antsharwood) December 1, 2022

The fact remains, however, that Brisbane had an exceptionally cold first day of summer. Thursday's official max temp of 22.3°C is still a long way off the long-term December average maximum of 29.1°C.

The good news for those who had to pull out the jumpers they'd packed away is that a warming trend will slowly develop in coming days for Brisbane and southeast Queensland, although lighter showers will stick around the coastal districts.

Looking ahead to next week, there are signs of some mid-30s heat by midweek for the southeast corner of the state. By then, people who complained about Thursday's cold might well be begging for it to return!

DON'T SAY WE DIDN'T WARN YOU! OUR MIDWEEK STORY ON BRISBANE'S IMPENDING COLD SNAP