TASMANIA has experienced its second-warmest winter on record with minimum and maximum temperatures above average across the state.
The Bureau of Meteorology’s climate summary for June to August shows that rainfall was close to average for much of the state.
The exceptions were the Bass Strait islands, where rainfall was above average, and the state’s South where falls were well below average.
Averaged across the state, rainfall was 3 per cent above the winter average total of 427 mm.
The bureau says several sites had their highest winter daily rainfall on record.
While June was relatively dry in the state’s West and wet in the East, in contrast July was wet in the West and dry in the East.
August was wet in the central West and dry for parts of the East Coast, but close to average for most of the state.
There was moderate flooding along the South Esk and Macquarie rivers during June and minor riverine flooding for large parts of central and eastern Tasmania in August.
The mean temperature for Tasmania overall was 0.97C higher than average – the equal second-highest on record and the warmest since 1988.
Averaged across the state, the mean minimum temperature was 1.20C higher than average, the third-highest on record and the warmest since 2009.
Parts of the central North and far South-East experienced their warmest mean minimum temperatures on record for winter.
The month of June was very much warmer than average while July temperatures were above average and August was warmer than average for the whole state, especially across the north.
A couple of sites had their highest winter temperature on record. Strahan Aerodrome on the West Coast had its highest winter mean daily maximum temperature on record.
Other sites had their highest winter mean daily minimum temperature on record or their highest winter mean daily minimum temperature for at least 20 years.
The hottest day for winter was recorded at Dover in the South on August 10 when the mercury reached at 20.2C.
Bicheno had the state’s warmest days on average at 14.9C, while the coolest days on average were on Mount Wellington where it averaged 3.8 C.
The coldest day for winter weas also recorded at Mount Wellington where it reached a chilly -1.8C on August 16 while Liawenee recorded the state’s coldest winter night on August 8 when the temperature got down to -8.1C.