Thursday, 9 January 2020 - Annual Climate Summary for Remote Islands and Antarctica - Product code IDCKGC5RR0

Remote Islands and Antarctica in 2019

Jump to a map of the areas covered in this summary

Australia's Indian Ocean islands

  • Apart from a very wet April, rainfall was well below average on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands and especially so in September, October and November and December; observing equipment outages during March and August mean that accumulated  rainfall for the year cannot be calculated
  • Most months were warmer than average at Cocos Islands Airport (and December was the warmest on record), but August was the coolest since 1997
  • Overall it was a warmer than average year on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, but observing equipment outages during September mean temperature averages for the year cannot be reliably calculated
  • On Christmas Island, rainfall was well below average in the second half of the year (with less than 28 mm from July to November), although March had been wet; observing equipment outages during the year mean that accumulated rainfall for the year cannot be calculated
  • Temperatures were mostly above average on Christmas Island, including a record warm December, a record hot January day and a record warm February and December nights, although cool weather dominated in June, July and August
  • Overall it was a warmer than average year on Christmas Island, but observing equipment outages during January mean temperature averages for the year cannot be reliably calculated

Australia's Pacific Ocean islands

  • Lord Howe Island had very warm days through the year, and its highest mean daily maximum temperature on record
  • Night-time temperatures on Lord Howe Island were above average in most months, but the mean minimum temprature was lowest on record in October and cool nights were common in May and June
  • Rainfall was well below average on Lord Howe Island: all months apart from August and November were below average and January and July were record dry; total rain for the year was about two-thirds of average
  • Norfolk Island was warmer than average in every month except for October; both January and February were very warm and included the warmest night on record on 23 February
  • Rainfall at Norfolk Island was below average in most months, especially January, April to August, and December, but it was the wettest March since 1962 and both September and October were also wetter than average; total rain for the year was about three-quarters of average

Australia's Antarctic and sub-Antarctic territories

  • Temperatures at Mawson were almost a degree above average overall; February and October were particularly warm months
  • The year was a little warmer than average at Davis; there were several relatively mild months but cold weather dominated from April to July and May was particularly cold
  • Casey's temperatures were close to average overall, with several relatively warm months but a particularly cold May, June and September
  • Macquarie Island was warmer than average in all months, including the warmest April on record, but August was cold; overall the year was about half a degree warmer than average
  • Total precipitation on Macquarie Island was above average, with January, May and August especially wet

Further information

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Records Summaries Important notes the top

Record highest annual mean daily maximum temperature
New record
(°C)		 Old
record		 Years of
record		 Annual
average
Lord Howe Island Aero 23.0 22.9 in 2016 30 22.2


Record highest daily minimum temperature
New record
(°C)		 Old
record		 Years of
record		 Annual
average
Norfolk Island Aero 24.7 on 23 Feb 24.4 on 19 Feb 2018 81 16.4


Records Summaries Important notes the top

Summary statistics for 2019
Maximum temperatures
(°C)		 Minimum temperatures
(°C)		 Precipitation
(millimetres)
Mean
for
2019		 Diff
from
average		 Highest
for
2019		 Mean
for
2019		 Diff
from
average		 Lowest
for
2019		 Total
for
2019		 Average
annual
total		 Rank
of
2019		 Fraction
of annual
average
Offshore Islands (district 200)
Lord Howe Island Aero 23.0 +0.8 29.9 13 Feb 17.4 +0.3 9.2 12 Oct 1010.6 1463.5 v low 69%
Norfolk Island Aero 22.2 +0.7 28.3 24 Feb 17.0 +0.6 10.9 25 Jul 923.0 1286.3 low 72%
Antarctica and Macquarie Island (district 300)
Casey -5.9 0.0 6.0 28 Jan -12.7 -0.1 -32.6 3 Sep
Davis -7.0 +0.3 8.4 18 Feb -12.8 +0.3 -32.8 8 Jun
Macquarie Island 7.1 +0.5 11.7 12 Feb 3.6 +0.5 -3.4 4 Aug 1178.8 993.2 v high 119%
Mawson -7.6 +0.7 5.6 17 Jan -13.6 +0.7 -30.0 23 Jul
Note: Precipitation values from Casey and Davis should be used with caution.

Records Summaries Important notes the top

Map of the areas covered by this summary

Notes

The Annual climate summary, generally published on the second working day of the year, lists the main features of the weather in Remote Islands and Antarctica using the most timely and accurate information available on the date of publication; it will generally not be updated. More extensive discussion of significant weather events, along with later information and data that has had greater opportunity for quality control, will be presented in the Monthly Weather Review.

This statement has been prepared based on information available at 12 pm on Monday 6 January 2020. Some checks have been made on the data, but it is possible that results will change as new information becomes available.

In some situations, some or all of the precipitation is in the form of hail or snow. In these cases the totals given are for the water equivalent: the depth of liquid water that results from melting any frozen precipitation. There can be significant 'undercatch' of snow in strong winds, meaning the true precipitation can be higher than that reported.

Averages for individual sites are long-term means based on observations from all available years of record, which vary widely from site to site. They are not shown for sites with less than 10 years of record, as they cannot then be calculated reliably.
The median is sometimes more representative than the mean of long-term average precipitation.

The Rank indicates how precipitation this time compares with the climate record for the site, based on the decile ranking (very low precipitation is in decile 1, low in decile 2 or 3, average in decile 4 to 7, high in decile 8 or 9 and very high is in decile 10).
The Fraction of average shows how much precipitation has fallen this time as a percentage of the long-term mean.

Where temperature area averages are mentioned, they are derived from the ACORN-SAT dataset.

Further information

Media
(03) 9669 4057
Enquiries