Incredible weather record broken for 'second time in 111 years'
Australia has had a cooler December than November for the first time in 70 years and only the second time in more than a century.
The Bureau of Meteorology’s climate team told Yahoo New Australia it was 1959 when Australia last had a warmer November than December.
It’s also the second time this has happened since temperatures began being recorded in 1910.
Weatherzone meteorologist Ben Domensino said December 2020 was cooler than the month preceding it by half a degree.
BOM put this down to increased cloud cover and rain. It’s also due to La Nina which is active and increasing rainfall over the summer.
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Hours of direct sunlight below average
Weatherzone meteorologist Esteban Abellan said NSW on average has 7.9 hours of direct sunlight daily over December. Last month, it was just 6.1 due to the clouds.
“The number of hours of sunshine have been really low this December,” Mr Abellan said.
Upper Springbrook in South East Queensland was also pummelled by rain in early December and received 952mm over just four days.
That’s more than Melbourne receives annually on average.
November was a scorcher for parts of Sydney with the CBD eclipsing 40 degrees.
Sydney didn’t hit 31 degrees in December
Sydney didn’t even hit 31 degrees over December with the highest temperature recorded 30.8 on December 7.
The NSW state capital had a lower top temperature than Melbourne in December too as that city hit 35 on December 15 – a temperature which was slightly eclipsed by a 35.4 day on November 27.
Mr Domensino said 2020 was also Australia’s fourth warmest year on record “with a national mean temperature 1.15 degrees above the 1961-1990 average”.
“This comes in behind 2019 (+1.52 degrees), 2013 (+1.33 degrees) and 2005 (+1.16 degrees),” he said.
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