A cold blast is set to hit the Sunshine Coast, with temperatures expected to be two or three degrees cooler than the average July minimum.
And southerly winds should ensure it feels even colder.
Bureau of Meteorology community information officer Daniel Hayes explained why locals should brace themselves, but said there was some uncertainty about just how cold it could get.
“The cool change is due from Sunday (and getting colder through the week),” he said.
“We’ve got a front moving across WA now … and behind that is a high-pressure system that will move into the Great Australian Bight by late Saturday.
“It will sit there and stretch down into the Southern Ocean, and it will pull up cold air from towards the Antarctic.
“There’s also a trough sitting off Queensland, and some of the modelling shows that it will head south and develop into a low-pressure system that could push into the Tasman (Sea).
“We also have a current low-pressure system in the Bass Strait.
“So, we may end up with a large low-pressure system, or systems, that will react with that southerly flow coming of the high-pressure system, which means we could see deeper, colder air pushing up over Queensland.
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“Winds of high and low-pressure systems spin in opposite directions (anti-clockwise and clockwise respectively) and when they’re adjacent to each other, the circulation of the low can enhance the circulation of the high and push stronger southerly winds over Australia.
“(But) if the low-pressure system is shallow or not as strong, then the cold air may not be quite pronounced.”
The average July minimum temperature for Sunshine Coast Airport is 9.7 degrees.
It should be about six degrees by Tuesday, with the potential for even lower figures later in the week.
But it’s the apparent temperature that should give locals a chill.
“It’s certainly going to feel colder than the reported temperatures, because there will be a southerly breeze,” Mr Hayes said.
He expected it to be like the cold spell the region experienced in June, when the temperature dipped below five degrees and there were south-westerly winds.
But Mr Hayes reiterated that there was an element of uncertainty surrounding the forecast.
“It just depends how strong that system in the Tasman is, as to how cold we could ultimately be,” he said.
“It’s a case of wait and see.
“We’re talking about six or seven degrees on Monday and Tuesday, and then we’ll see if it manages to get colder than that on Wednesday and Thursday.”
There should be mostly sunny or partly cloudy conditions.
The coldest day of the year in 2023 was on July 1, when the temperature dipped to 2.6 degrees.
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