Three Australian cities all shivered through their coldest temperatures of 2026 to date overnight, in the cool, crisp air in the wake of a cold front.

Adelaide

After its coldest maximums of the year over the weekend, Adelaide fell to 3.5°C early on Monday morning after Sunday’s low of 4.0°C was the coldest June night in two years. Adelaide’s average June minimum is 8.5°C and its lowest on record was 0.8°C in 1944.

Hobart

Hobart hit a low of 3.2°C at 7:43 am this Monday, its first morning below four degrees this year. Hobart’s average June minimum is 5.2°C and its lowest on record was -2.8°C in 1972.

Launceston

Like downtown Hobart, most of Launceston is just a few metres above sea level, but Tasmania's second-largest city is situated about 40km inland, meaning generally colder winter nights. Overnight, the mercury dipped to -0.8°C, the coldest of the three subzero minimums this year to date.

Widespread cold temperatures on Monday morning

Slightly further afield, Launceston Airport (at 166.9 metres above sea level) saw its lowest reading of 2026 to date, with -2.8°C, while Liawenee on Tasmania’s Central Plateau had the state’s lowest overnight reading of -5.1°C.

Light cloud at the alpine resorts of New South Wales and Victoria prevented the mercury from plummeting below about -2°C overnight, while the lowest reading on mainland Australia was at Glen Innes on the NSW Northern Tablelands, which recorded -3.0°C just before 7am.

Though it’s located just 100 km south of the Queensland border, Glen Innes typically experiences extremely cold nights in winter due to its valley location at an elevation over 1000 metres. Indeed, the town of 6200 residents recorded Australia’s coldest temperature of -10.8°C in 2023.

More typical winter temperatures this week across southern Australia

The last two weeks were exceptionally warm by winter standards across southern Australia, with the exception of the southwest corner (including Perth). Adelaide and Melbourne even had 20-degree days.

This week, temperatures will be much closer to the winter average across southern Australia, even if they’re not particularly frigid.

The weekend cold front that pushed across the southeast was not a particularly strong system, but it left behind enough cool air to prevent significant unseasonable warming this week, even as a strong ridge of high pressure establishes dominance over Australia’s weather patterns.

The high will produce stable weather conditions across much the country, blocking influxes of cold, unstable air from the Southern Ocean until a cold front approaches southwest WA on Thursday night into Friday.