Has the Douglas Shire shivered through a cooler than average winter? In short, not quite...
AVERAGE TEMPS
There’s a perennial weather joke that does the rounds in the Far North including here in Douglas which goes something like, "we’ve had our winter already and this year it was on a Wednesday".
This time though it feels like the cooler temperatures have not only been lower, but also have gone for a longer period, like some sort of ‘extended winter’.
But the official weather people, the Bureau of Meteorology, have assured us that 2024 hasn’t really been anything out of the ordinary.
In fact, a Bureau spokesperson told Newsport that “it's been a fairly typical winter so far for the Cairns region.”
From a weather forecasting and observational perspective, the “Cairns region” is the closest we get to having our own, Douglas Shire-specific data, mainly because there isn’t an official station within the Shire (unless you include Low Isles, which is 15 kilometres off Port Douglas surrounded by ocean and which records very different climatic conditions compared to those of a mainland-based station).
“Cairns Aero has an average minimum of 18C in June, 17.2C in July and 17.4C in August,” the spokesperson said.
“June 2024 saw an average minimum of 17.8C and July 2024 saw an average minimum of 17.C and recent August temperatures have been in line with the monthly average.”
Just to further put paid to the feelings of some weather watchers that there’s been an elongated winter (including this reporter’s), the Bureau confirmed that those temperatures are, well, pretty average and very much in line with the climate in our
region over the ‘winter’ duration.
But there was at least one memorable, chilly day recently.
“July had a notably cold day with 9.5C recorded on the 19th which is around 8C below the average, but it is not a record, with 7.3C the record for July and 6.2C the record for June and the annual record.”
“Unusually” warm weather ahead
Looking ahead, there are contrasting conditions on the way, according to the Bureau, whose longer range forecast “indicates an increased chance of unusually warm days and nights for much of northern Australia during August.”
That forecast adds that “August maximum temperatures have historically been on average, in the low 30s for the far north of Australia, and in the low 20s for the south of the Northern Territory and Queensland, and central parts of Western Australia.
“Minimum temperatures are generally in the high teens across the tropical north.”
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