June 2023 Summary

Queensland's Warmest June By A Huge Margin
( source: Weatherzone )

Seems like the Queensland weather gods are in a record-breaking kind of mood right now.

On Monday afternoon, we told you that parts of outback Queensland had broken their monthly rainfall records within a day or two of July starting, with 10 to 15 times their monthly average rainfall in 24 hours.
That came right after a month of extraordinarily high average temperatures, with Queensland experiencing its warmest June on record this year. Across the state, June was:

3.13°C above average in Queensland, which is an unusually large anomaly

That broke the old Qld June anomaly of 2.49°C above average (1996) by more than half a degree

The nation as a whole was 1.25°C above average in June, which made it the 10th-warmest June on record

Only the southern and western half of Western Australia had any significant areas of below-average temps in June.

Indeed WA as a whole was -0.38°C down on the June average and as we wrote on Monday, Perth had its coldest June in 50 years

Every other state was significantly warmer than the long-term average for June

While some states were up there in near record-breaking territory (for example the NT had its 3rd-warmest June on record), Queensland's anomaly was a long way in front of the other states.

Take a look at the BoM chart above showing mean temperature deciles. This is a way of breaking temperature data into 10 evenly sized portions.

In basic terms, the higher or lower the number (and in this case the warmer or cooler the colour), the less common the data. As you can see, central Queensland had a pretty large chunk of highest-on-record temps, while no part of the state had average or below-average temps.

But that was June, and if there's one thing we love about weather, it’s that it's always changing. Ironically, many Qld towns in exactly the orange blob area have just had their coldest day for 2023 by some margin in the first few days of July.
For example Longreach had a totally dry June with an average maximum of 27.9°C – a whopping four degrees warmer over the month than the average max of 23.9°C
But as the cloud and rain moved in on Sunday July 2, the mercury in Longreach peaked at just 12.7°C – eleven degrees below the July average!

Some rain is persisting this Tuesday in parts of eastern and southern Qld, but a general drying trend should set in across the state as the week proceeds.

Other stats:

Median high: 77.5 (+0.6 f from mean)
Median low:  52.5 (-0.7 f from mean)

True daily mean: 65.0 (-0.1 f from mean)
Mean dew point: 51.4
Mean RH%:       67.7%

Highest dew point: 63.3 on the 21st (17.4 c)
Lowest dew point: 13.6 on the 23rd (-10.2 c)

Days with >60 f dew: 6

Mean 3 PM temp: 73.9 (23.3 c)
Mean 3 PM dew:  49.5  (9.7 c)
Mean 3 PM RH:   47.9%

Max 5 min rain rate: 2.88”/hr on the 11th

*Sunshine: 267 hours
*Sun %:     59%

*estimated from solar radiation

Do you think it's safe to say if current trends continue then Portsmouth might break into the 2000 annual sunshine hour mark in the not too distant future?

Looks lovely!

Not if it carries on like July is currently lol