Friday, 1 March 2013 - Seasonal Climate Summary for Tasmania - Product code IDCKGC27R0

Tasmania in summer 2012-13: A warm and dry summer

Summer 2012–13 brought record high temperatures and relatively little rain to Tasmania.

• Hottest day on record at sites including Hobart
• Warmer than average overall
• Below average summer rain for most
• Driest summer in 10 years for sites in the southeast

Monthly summaries have also been prepared for December, January and February. The extreme heat that affected large parts of Australia in late December and early January is discussed in a Special Climate Statement.

Extremes Maps Records Summaries Important notes the top

Record summer heat

Summer 2012–13 saw a number of very warm days, with the most notable on 4 January when Hobart reached 41.8 °C and several other highest summer temperature records were broken in the East, Southeast and Derwent Valley districts. At the other extreme, (Maydena equalled its coldest summer day on record) on 4 December, but through the season there was more warm weather than cold. Some sites recorded their highest summer mean maximum temperature on record, and overall summer mean maximum temperatures were up to 2 degrees above average.

Mild nights, but a few cold ones too

Minimum temperatures were warmer than average in summer, by up to one degree in most areas. The highest minimum temperatures coincided with the hot days around 4 January, and also in the second half of February when minima above 15 °C were common.

Most nights were mild, but there were a few cold ones; the coldest were around 4 and 5 December, and 2 February where temperatures fell below 8 °C in most areas. Mount Wellington's -2.7 °C on the morning of 5 December was the coldest temperature for this summer. Overall, summer mean minimum temperatures were about a degree above average.

Below average summer rain, especially in the southeast

Summer rainfall was below average in most areas of Tasmania, especially in the southeast where many sites observed their driest summer since the record dry 2002–03. Though there were many days of rain in the southeast, daily totals were usually small; the wettest day was on 31 January when a cold front brought falls of up to around 20 mm, with isolated falls up to 30 mm.

Elsewhere in the state, the heaviest rainfall event was overnight on 14 December, when a low produced heavy rainfall in the northwest. Ulverstone (Knights Road) recorded 78 mm over the 24 hours to 9am on the 15th, the wettest day of summer 2012–13 and Ulverstone's wettest December day on record.

Dennes Point in the southeast was Tasmania's driest location with a summer total of only 52 mm. Lake Margaret Power Station in the west was the wettest site with 472 mm.

Warmest summer days on record in Hobart

Hobart's mean summer maximum temperature of 23.3 °C was its warmest on record, beating the previous record of 23.2 °C set in the summer of 2000–01 and 1899–1900. There were more warm days than cold, and more hot days than is usual for summer. In addition to observing its hottest day on record with 41.8 °C on 4 January, the temperature rose above 30 degrees on 8 days, a few days more than the summer average of 5.

Minimum temperatures were also warmer than average, by 1.4 °C. There were many warmer than average nights; the temperature did not fall below 16 °C on 16 days, almost triple Hobart's summer average of 6 such mild nights. The highest minimum temperature was 23.4 °C on 4 January, Hobart's highest January minimum temperature on record (but short of the 24.7 °C on 4 February 1912).

Hobart recorded 57 mm of rain, about a third of the summer average of 145 mm. This is Hobart's driest summer since the record dry 2002–03 when only 27 mm was recorded. At least 100 mm of rain has fallen every summer since then. February was the wettest month with 23 mm, of which 10 mm came from a front that crossed on 31 January.

Destructive bushfires

There were many bushfires in summer, the most destructive of those in January. Hundreds of properties were destroyed, with tens of thousand hectares of land burnt, and thousands of people left without power.

Extremes Maps Records Summaries Important notes the top

Maps
	Observed	Anomaly	Decile rank
Total rainfall
Mean daily maximum temperatures
Mean daily minimum temperatures

Click on a map to show it full size in a pop-up window

* note: there are gaps in the historical record at this site, so it is possible a lower value has gone unreported.

Extremes Maps Records Summaries Important notes the top

Extremes Maps Records Summaries Important notes the top