Monday, 1 June 2020 - Seasonal Climate Summary for Remote Islands and Antarctica - Product code IDCKGC2RR0

Remote Islands and Antarctica in autumn 2020

Jump to a map of the areas covered in this summary

Australia's Indian Ocean islands—warm days and nights

Australia's Pacific Ocean islands—warm days

  • A wet March resulted in close to average rainfall for autumn at Norfolk Island Aero, despite a very dry April
  • Total rainfall for the season was close to average at Lord Howe Island Aero, however rainfall had been running below average for most of the season until a very heavy fall of 111.0 mm on 28 May
  • Mean minimum temperatures for autumn were near average at both Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island
  • Daytime temperatures were generally warmer than average on both islands

Australia's Antarctic and sub-Antarctic territories—wet at Macquarie Island

  • Rainfall for autumn was above average at Macquarie Island after recording its wettest May day on record on 2 May
  • Precipitation was above average at Davis for the season
  • Daytime temperatures were warmer than average at Macquarie Island and around most of Australia's Antarctic bases—Davis was close to average for the season after cold days in March but a warmer than average May
  • Mean minimum temperatures were generally warmer than average, except at Davis

Further information

Media
(03) 9669 4057

Records Summaries Important notes the top

Record highest autumn daily minimum temperature
New record
(°C)		 Old
record		 Years of
record		 Average for
autumn
Christmas Island Aero 26.7 on 24 Apr 26.5 on 24 Apr 2016 48 23.5


Record highest autumn mean daily minimum temperature
New record
(°C)		 Old
record		 Years of
record		 Average for
autumn
Christmas Island Aero 24.3 = 24.3 in 2016 45 23.5


Highest autumn mean temperature for at least 20 years
Observed
(°C)		 Most recent
higher		 Average for
autumn
Cocos Island Airport 28.3 28.7 in 1998 27.5


Records Summaries Important notes the top

Summary statistics for autumn 2020
Maximum temperatures
(°C)		 Minimum temperatures
(°C)		 Precipitation
(millimetres)
Mean for
autumn
2020		 Diff
from
average		 Highest for
autumn
2020		 Mean for
autumn
2020		 Diff
from
average		 Lowest for
autumn
2020		 Total for
autumn
2020		 Average
for
autumn		 Rank of
autumn
2020		 Fraction of
autumn
average
Offshore Islands (district 200)
Christmas Island Aero 28.9 +0.7 30.7 23 Apr 24.3 +0.8 21.7 15 Apr 854.0 720.2 average 119%
Cocos Island Airport 30.5 +0.8 32.6 24 Apr 26.1 +0.9 22.8 13 Mar 431.4 675.7 low 64%
Lord Howe Island Aero 23.8 +0.5 27.6 3 Mar 18.1 -0.1 11.9 24 Apr 423.8 417.4 average 102%
Norfolk Island Aero 23.0 +0.3 27.8 8 Mar 18.0 +0.2 14.4 19 May 356.4 356.5 average 100%
Antarctica and Macquarie Island (district 300)
Casey -7.0 +0.5 2.3 15 Apr -13.1 +1.2 -27.1 20 May
Davis -9.6 0.0 0.5 3 Mar -15.7 -0.4 -26.9 28 May 41.8 29.6 high 141%
Macquarie Island 7.7 +0.7 11.0 4 Apr 4.6 +0.9 -2.0 7 May 330.6 281.1 high 118%
Mawson -9.8 +1.0 -0.7 13 May -16.4 +0.3 -25.4 28 May
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 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 1 June 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