Australian Weather

Today, 12:28AM UTC

A powerful swell produced by a bombing low pressure system over the Tasman Sea is causing damaging surf and erosion along the NSW coast today, including parts of Sydney. The video below shows the Tasman Low spinning around 800km off the NSW coast on Tuesday. Video: Satellite images showing a deep Tasman Low on Tuesday, April 1, 2025. This system intensified so rapidly on Monday morning that its central pressure dropped by 20hPa in 24 hours. At this latitude, this was enough for it to be classified as a ‘bomb cyclone’, which is a term used by meteorologists to describe low pressure systems outside the tropics that intensify rapidly over a short period of time (a process called explosive cyclogenesis). The powerful Tasman Low has caused ferocious winds that have been whipping up massive waves across the Tasman Sea in the last couple of days. On Monday night, sensors attached to a satellite passing over the Tasman Sea detected a 400km swathe of winds blowing at more than 50 knots (93 km/h) on the western and southern sides of the low’s centre. Satellite data also showed that wave heights on Tuesday morning reached 9.6 metres near this region of storm force winds. Image: Satellite-detected wind speeds on Monday night. The wind bards with small triangles on their tails show a huge region of winds blowing at more than 50kt (93km/h). Source: NOAA/NESDIS Closer to Australia’s east coast, significant wave heights of around six metres were also observed near Eden and Port Kembla on Tuesday and Wednesday morning. These big waves have been causing erosion and damage at some beaches along the NSW coast. In Sydney, Tuesday night’s high tide combined with the pumping surf to cause damage at popular beaches including Bondi and Bronte. As the sun rose on Wednesday, beachside walkways were covered with sand, walls had been knocked over and the famous Bondi Icebergs pool area had even suffered damage. Image: A damaged wall at Bronte on Wednesday morning. Source: Krisha Patel While swell will gradually ease along the NSW coast in the coming days, a hazardous surf warning remains in place on Wednesday for the coast stretching from southern NSW to southeast Qld.

01 Apr 2025, 9:20AM UTC

With nationwide average temperatures that were 2.41°C above the long-term average, Australia has registered its hottest March since national records were first kept in 1910. It was also Australia’s fourth-wettest March on record, with rainfall that was 47% above the long-term average. Wet weather and above-average temperatures generally don’t go together for the obvious reason that cloudy weather restricts the amount of warming sunlight, therefore it’s likely that the underlying influence of climate change was a factor contributing to Australia's very warm March. Image: Mean temperature anomalies for Australia from 1910 to 2025. The anomalies are compared to the average of the 30-year baseline period from 1961-1990. Source: BoM. Temperature statistics for March 2025 As mentioned, Australia as a whole was 2.41°C above the long-term average, the hottest March on record.  Each individual state and territory was warmer than normal. Three states had their hottest March on record – SA, NSW and WA.  South Australia registered the biggest anomaly of any state or territory, with statewide temperatures that were 3.26°C above the long-term average. Tasmania registered the smallest temperature anomaly, yet it was still the state's 10th-warmest March on record, with temperatures 1.06°C warmer than the long-term average.  Rainfall summary for March 2025 As the blue areas on the chart below indicate, virtually the whole of Queensland and large parts of northern NSW saw rainfall that was very much above average, or even the highest on record, in March 2025.  Image: Rainfall deciles for March 2025, with the darkest blue representing the highest March rainfall on record. Source: BoM. Overall it was Queensland's 3rd-wettest March on record. The first notable rainfall reading came on March 9, when Brisbane had its wettest day in half a century with 275.2mm recorded due to ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred.  In the middle third of the month, the wettest part of the country was North Queensland, with Townsville recording its heaviest daily rainfall in 27 years when 301.4mm drenched the city in the 24-hours to 9am on March 19. Around the same time of the month, a weather station on the Cardwell Range, about halfway between Cairns and Townsville, recorded a 7-day rainfall total of 1090.8 mm. In the last full week of the month, 24-hour totals of more than 200mm were recorded at weather stations in far western Qld, as a prolonged influx of tropical moisture soaked outback and central Qld and parts of northern NSW. Despite the relentless rainfall in Qld and parts of NSW, March rainfall totals were below average for most of Tasmania, parts of the mainland's south and west, and parts of Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory. READ MORE: Normally dry creek now 60km wide