And thank god for that! Looking forward to the heat returning next week. Looking like a foul few days coming up! Yuck! Suppose all this southern air will do is clear out all the moisture/humidity that's been keeping dew points reasonable over
Australia.

cool conditions for a week? for Sydney the only coolish days look to be Monday and Tuesday and even they could be above average with offshore winds predicted. Wednesday could be 30+ across the basin with 850temps in the high teens and offshore winds. then by friday 850temps are back into the twenties again.

Wed and fri maxes are both 25/28 (east/west) for SYD, mid 20s looks the go for most of the week with the southerlies which will be even chillier down in VIC and SA

the BOM are always over conservative on maximum temps until about 2 or 3 days out, 30C+ atm looks highly likely for Sydney on Wednesday IMO.

theyre usually spot on with the temps, although this time we could end up cooler than the forecast as has been the case most days this summer

I want to tell someone I've put my weather station together, the software is loaded the control is working and all I need now is a pole outside to attach my rain, wind speed, wind, and temperature pole to wooohooo so many cables to tidy up but I can't wait to get it outside in the "weather"!!!

It should be pretty cool through southern VIC from mid to late Saturday afternoon right through to Thursday. After that we are likely to see one or two hot days again but then another decent cool spell looks like coming over. Further inland it will get hot again very quickly, but that's normal. If you look at average summer maximums for southern NSW, a lot of them are around 31C/32C so yes, the summers are hot in those places, very hot at times. Canberra is well within the area I'm talking about, the only factor that stops more intense heat there is the elevation. 500m asl for most of suburban Canberra I'm pretty sure.

Still that only knocks off a few degrees so Canberra's average January max is 28C which is the same as areas with similar elevations in north central VIC, north of the GDR. I think someone might have mentioned earlier that Canberra is not the best place to be if you don't like hot summers and I'll second that. It may not be terrible on average but a lot of people get fooled by the Canberra winter into thinking that summer will be cool. The climate there is continental by Aus standards with substantially cold winters and rather hot summers. If you like it cooler you really have to be near the coast and as far south as possible. Think Tasmania and southern VIC south of the ranges.

One place I would recommend is the Lavers Hill to Tanybryn area in the Otway ranges. Not only is it the wettest place in VIC (aside from perhaps Falls Creek)with rainforest but it hardly ever gets hot either and the average summer max temp is around 19C, similar to Scotland!

But the nights will be significantly cooler according to BoM. Perhaps an indication of the predicted drop in dew points. Tuesday morning is forecasted to drop to 16 in Sydney! Coldest since December 3. Get the doonas out - I know I'll feel cold if that forecast is accurate.

What cold spell??? Check out the outlook:

Monday Mostly fine. Min 11 Max 23
Tuesday Fine, mostly sunny. Min 8 Max 27
Wednesday Fine, mostly sunny. Min 9 Max 32
Thursday Fine, mostly sunny. Min 13 Max 34
Friday Fine, partly cloudy. Min 16 Max 37
Saturday Mostly fine. Min 18 Max 37

more like HOT to me

25 here on Monday but back into the 40's by the end of the week.
Duane.

Yes, the holiday from the heat will be brief. But we've had less "AC On" days this January than last, that's for sure. We've passed the half way mark of the meteorological summer, so one milestone down. We're now entering the 'dog days' of summer, from mid Jan to early Feb, when peak heat usually occurs in the SE. Canberra's "D-Day" of Jan 29 suits this model well.

What are "dog days"??

well it is january, we are in an el nino and our sst's are much warmer than avg, so one would expect warmth, humidity and storms

Considering the average temp in January is 31 degrees (We never seem to have average to below average months these days) anyway...

Some hot days on the way. Today it is quite pleasant sitting in undercover shade outside as although the temp is 35 the humidity is around 8-9 percent.

41 tomorrow
41 Monday
38 Tuesday

Wednesday to Friday, 30,28 and 27 before


35 degrees next weekend again !

Perth looks like it will end up the month 3 or more degrees above average. Plus it is now DAY 55 of no rain.... maybe we will break the record of 83 days of no rain.

I should add that Geraldton is forecast for 45 tomorrow , they had 44 today and Monday the forecast is for 42 deg. The average temp is 31.6 so these temps are well above the average .

But I don't understand how "dogs" come into it I mean a dog is a 4-legged animal kept as a pet??

The "dog" days of summer is more a Northern Hemisphere thing- it refers to the star Sirius (aka the dog star or Canis Major). Sirius is invisible in the Northern Hemisphere for most of the year, bar the height of summer- hence the "dog days of summer".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_Days

I don't think you've read that page properly, sorry, it doesn't say that at all.

The Dog Days where when Sirius rose around the same time of the sun (August several thousand years ago, now its around 1 July) and the combined heat of the Sun and the brightest star in the sky, already long known as the Dog Star, was thought to bring the strong heat of late summer. The Dog Star was called such long before the constellation Canis Major, the Big Dog, was constructed around Sirius by the Romans. One of the interpretations of Sirius is "Scorching."

Sirius is not invisible 'for most of the year' in the northern hemisphere, it is only -16 declination south, thats pretty close to the celestial equator so unless you're right at the poles you'd see it often, particularly from the Mediterranian region. And here in Australia, at least southern Australia, its visible every night of the year. Around the end of June, beginning of July you can see it set after the sun and rise the next morning just before sunrise, which I've tested on many an occasion.

At the moment its prominent in our summer night sky. Perhaps we can blame it the for the hot nights of summer instead.

This upcoming heatwave will be less severe than the last one we had, which eased the other day and ended with the storms last night. After the high heat next Friday and Saturday caused by a filthy air mass encroaching from the interior, temperatures are currently forecast to ease back slightly and look like staying that way (although it will still be hot enough to be uncomfortable) with temperatures in the 30s into the beginning of the following week, with the monster retreating back to WA.

http://www.bom.gov.au/weather/wa/observations/perth.shtml

As you can see it was extremely hot all throughout Perth.

43 deg here !!!.... though humidity down to 8 percent.

Seasol and Mulch have saved the garden.

It isn't cooling down quickly either.

When was the last time Perth had only average temps in Summer (in other words each month we finished with the average temp being spot on )?