Top End Wet Season 2023 - 2024

Darwin Airport last 12 months:

Darwin this morning:

Northern AU this morning ( 4.30am )

Darwin’s Warmest Start To A Year Since 1935
( source: Weatherzone )

A delayed wet season has helped Darwin experience one of its warmest starts to a year on record.

The opening days and nights of 2024 have been stifling in Darwin thanks to a combination of abnormally high temperatures and ample humidity.

The temperature at Darwin Airport on the morning of Monday, January 1, only dropped to 29.9ºC. This was the city’s hottest January morning since 1933 and its third highest January minimum temperature on record.

This sultry morning was then followed by daytime maximums of 35.3ºC on Monday and 35.5ºC Tuesday, making this the hottest first two days of a year since 1935. Tuesday was also Darwin’s hottest January day in eight years.

While a couple of 35ºC days may not seem exceptionally hot for higher latitudes in Australia, this type of heat can be oppressive when combined with Darwin’s high humidity at this time of year.

Dew point temperatures in the mid-to-high twenties made it feel about 3 to 6ºC warmer than it actually was for most of Monday and Tuesday in Darwin. At 1:30pm local time on Monday, an air temperature of 34.8ºC and a dew point of 27.5ºC made it feel more like 40ºC in the city.

One reason Darwin has been so warm in recent days has been the absence of cooling monsoonal wind and rain. While the average date of the monsoon onset in Darwin is during the final week of December, El Niño is known to delay the monsoon, and this has been the case this season.

Showers and thunderstorms will be possible in Darwin every day this week. However, with no clear signs of the monsoon on the horizon, the hot and sweaty build-up looks set to continue for until at least the middle of January.

Notes/- my own content:
First 2 days of January and the max temps at the Airport have exceeded 35c.
So how common are +35c max temps in January historically ?
Short answer: not many...
Only 24 such Jan days since 1942
2024 - 2
2022 - 1
2020 - 1
2016 - 1
2014 - 2 ( both +36c )
2012 - 1
2005 - 1
1988 - 1
1985 - 1
1976 - 1
1973 - 2
1972 - 1
1970 - 2
1969 - 2
1956 - 1
1952 - 2
1948 - 1
1945 - 1
Total - 24
Record Jan max 36.1c in 2014.

35c/24c in Darwin again today.... I've felt it some, having done a full service on the Toyota 4wd including rotating the tyres... at least out of the sun in the son's shed...

A new record for January heat at Darwin Airport... 4 of the first 5 days of Jan 2024 have exceeded 35c max. Never been more than 2 days +35c at the Airport since records began in 1942

2023 was dry here too.

Actual precip: 29.75" (755.7 mm)
NWS normal: 37.13" (943.1 mm)
Full POR average: 32.27" (819.7 mm)

This is all after what had been a pretty wet run of years; 2006-2010 and 2013-2020 were all wetter than the full POR average.

13.6mm late yesterday afternoon from a bit of 'Hector' coming down from the Tiwi islands..... appears to a lot more moisture in sky,a harbinger of an impending monsoon.
Nice little line to our north east this morning....

Top End and Darwin this morning.... can hear distant thunder....