Monday, 3 December 2018 - Seasonal Climate Summary for Remote Islands and Antarctica - Product code IDCKGC2RR0

Remote Islands and Antarctica in spring 2018

Jump to a map of the areas covered in this summary

Australia's Indian Ocean islands

  • Christmas Island Aero had its equal-coldest spring day on record with a maximum temperature of 23.0 °C pm 6 September
  • Problems with the Automatic Weather Station at Christmas Island meant no temperature data are available for October 2018; temperatures were record low in September but a little above average in November
  • Christmas Island Aero recorded only 112.4 mm of rain for all of spring, very much below the long-term average of 299 mm
  • Temperatures on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands were slightly above average overall
  • Cocos Islands Airport recorded 108.2 mm of rain for all of spring, well down on the long-term average of 276 mm

Australia's Pacific Ocean islands

  • Lord Howe Island had a cool September, but a mild October and November; spring mean temperatures were a little above average overall
  • Lord Howe Island Airport reported 81% of its long-term average spring rainfall, with October bringing much less rain than usual
  • Norfolk Island had warm nights in October and record warm temperatures during November; spring mean temperatures were a little above average overall
  • Norfolk Island Airport registered slightly more rain than its long-term spring average, with low totals in September made up for by a wet November

Australia's Antarctic and sub-Antarctic territories

Further information

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Records Summaries Important notes the top

Record highest spring daily precipitation
New record
(mm)		 Old
record		 Years of
record
Macquarie Island 38.4 on 16 Sep 30.2 on 17 Nov 1952 71


Record highest spring temperature
New record
(°C)		 Old
record		 Years of
record		 Average for
spring
Macquarie Island 11.1 on 28 Nov 10.7 on 30 Nov 1974 71 5.9


Record lowest spring daily maximum temperature
New record
(°C)		 Old
record		 Years of
record		 Average for
spring
Christmas Island Aero 23.0 on 6 Sep = 23.0 on 14 Sep 1975 47 26.8


Record highest spring daily minimum temperature
New record
(°C)		 Old
record		 Years of
record		 Average for
spring
Macquarie Island 7.2 on 30 Nov = 7.2 on 31 Oct 2016 71 2.1


Records Summaries Important notes the top

Summary statistics for spring 2018
Maximum temperatures
(°C)		 Minimum temperatures
(°C)		 Precipitation
(millimetres)
Mean for
spring
2018		 Diff
from
average		 Highest for
spring
2018		 Mean for
spring
2018		 Diff
from
average		 Lowest for
spring
2018		 Total for
spring
2018		 Average
for
spring		 Rank of
spring
2018		 Fraction of
spring
average
Offshore Islands (district 200)
Christmas Island Aero *                 112.4 299.2 v low 38%
Cocos Island Airport 28.7 0.0 30.2 18 Nov 24.5 +0.3 21.5 5 Sep 108.2 276.2 low 39%
Lord Howe Island Aero 21.4 +0.3 25.3 7 Nov 16.2 +0.3 9.1 26 Sep 261.8 324.0 low 81%
Norfolk Island Aero 20.7 +0.3 24.6 23 Nov 15.5 +0.6 9.8 27 Sep 266.2 250.8 average 106%
Antarctica and Macquarie Island (district 300)
Casey -7.3 -0.6 2.2 24 Nov -14.2 -0.6 -33.5 24 Sep
Davis -8.4 -0.5 0.7 25 Nov -14.8 -0.6 -29.2 7 Sep 7.8 11.2 average 70%
Macquarie Island 7.0 +1.1 11.1 28 Nov 3.1 +1.0 -3.5 26 Sep 243.6 227.8 average 107%
Mawson -9.4 -0.5 1.5 19 Oct -16.0 -0.8 -28.3 7 Sep

Note: Precipitation values from Casey and Davis should be used with caution.
Note: Temperature data not available from Christmas Island for October.

Records Summaries Important notes the top

Map of the areas covered by this summary

Notes

The Seasonal climate summary, generally published on the first working day of each month, 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 2 pm on Monday 3 December 2018. 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