Weather heats up as Summer kicks off

Beaches fill up on the first weekend of summer with BOM predicting an ‘unusually warm’ summer after dry early Spring.

Anna Wiblin and Aspen Wood at Murray Rose Pool (formerly Redleaf Pool). Picture: Nikki Short

Thousands flocked to the nation’s beaches on Sunday after a stormy start to December, with much of the country to experience heatwave conditions in the first week of summer.

Heatwave warnings were already in place on Sunday for parts of Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory, with these warning increasing in intensity through to Wednesday and incorporating parts of most states except Tasmania.

A broad ridge of high pressure will draw a continental air mass over much of NSW during this week, meaning heatwave con­ditions are likely, with Sydneysiders already taking advantage of the weather.

Aspen Wood, who recently moved to Sydney from Adelaide, said she was “lapping up” the weather.

“We’ve been venturing around, we’ve done all (the beaches). I’m more of a lady of leisure so I moved here to do this,” she said.

She said Murray Rose Pool in the Woollahra municipality was the pick of the beaches she had visited in the month since she moved east. “This place is stunning, We will probably be here for most of the summer,” she said.

The inner-east municipality is gearing up for a hot summer, with new year celebrations and the Sydney to Hobart race attracting big crowds to its harbourside locations every year.

“It’s been great to see more people out enjoying our beautiful parks and beaches,” Woollahra mayor Richard Shields said.

“As the weather and water warms up, we expect and welcome more visitors,” he said. “With more local residents and visitors out and about, it’s also good to see strong support for our small businesses after a tough few years.”

Woollahra mayor Richard Shields.

In the Bureau of Meteorology’s long-range forecast for summer 2023-24, released last week, senior climatologist Lynette Bettio said it was “likely to be unusually warm this summer”.

The Australian revealed on Saturday that some farmers had resorted to paying for independent weather forecasting services because of “inaccurate” predictions of a dry spring from BOM.

The forecast said after a dry September and October, widespread storms in November lifted total spring rainfall across parts of northern and eastern Australia but it had still been a drier than usual spring.

The BOM is forecasting most of Australia, except the southeastern region, is 2.5 times more likely than normal to experience unusually high maximum temperatures for December to February.

The chance of unusually high maximum temperatures increases to greater than four times more likely than normal for parts of western WA and the far north of the NT and Queensland, according to the BOM.

Most of eastern and northern Australia is 60 to 80 per cent likely to experience above median maximum temperatures in December, with a greater than 80 per cent chance for most of WA and SA.

From December to February, almost all of Australia has a greater than 80 per cent chance of above median maximum temperatures.