Unseasonable warmth across the north and interior of Australia has made a last-minute dash to break numerous July heat records on the last day of the month.

hot airmass building across the northern half of Australia has been drawn into southern parts of the Northern Territory, western and central Queensland, and western NSW over the last few days. This heat culminated to a record-breaking day on the final day of the month, with numerous stations recording their hottest July day on record, some notable records include: 

• 30.5°C at Charleville (Maranoa, QLD, 79 years of record-keeping) 
• 31.8°C at Alice Springs Ap (NT, 79 years) 
• 26.2°C at Cobar (Upper Western, NSW, 59 years) 
• 35.1°C at Jervois (Alice Springs, NT, 52 years) 
• 37.2°C at Victoria River Downs (Victoria River, NT, 49 years) 
• 36.3°C at Jabiru (Darwin-Daly, NT, 42 years) 
• 36.2°C at McArthur River (Roper-McArthur, NT, 39 years) 
• 26.6°C at Leigh Creek (NE Pastoral, SA, 37 years) 
• 36.8°C at Kununurra Ap (Kimberley, WA, 32 years) 

Image: ECMWF showing warm surface temperatures across the north and central east of Australia, along with observed temperatures on the afternoon of Saturday July 31st 

This hot airmass will linger in the north over the coming days, while gradually becoming more constrained from the south as cold fronts introduce colder air from the Southern Ocean. While some of the temperatures recorded on Saturday afternoon may be exceeded over the coming days, it is less likely that we’ll see any August maxima heat records being broken with this spell of heat.

This heat is also responsible for the warmth felt across eastern metropoles over the weekend and expected to start the coming week. Sydney reached 23 degrees on Saturday and has already reached 25 degrees today ahead of a cool change this afternoon. Further north, Brisbane is forecast to reach 27 degrees on both Sunday and Monday, before reaching a peak of 28 degrees on Tuesday and cooling down to the low-20s over the remainder of the week.