Overnight temperatures have plummeted across much of Western Australia as winter draws near. Most places in WA's Goldfields saw their coldest night of the year with minimums falling to eight degrees below average. Both Laverton and Leinster dropped to 7 degrees, their coldest April night in three years. Over into the Gascoyne, overnight temperatures also fell to their lowest this year, in some places by as much as 6 to 8 degrees below average. In fact the cold night was felt right across Western Australia from the western inland across to Uluru in the Northern Territory. With winter just over a month away it is reasonable to expect increasingly lower temperatures, particularly overnight across the interior. However, this has been quite sudden with many places dropping over 10 degrees from the previous night. The cause has been one of the strongest fronts so far this year, sweeping across the south. Behind some quite cold air has filtered as far north as the Gascoyne and helped cool things down. In addition, a relatively strong ridge of high pressure spilled in behind the front, clearing skies of cloud and thus allowing overnight temperatures to plummet.