A tiny town located on Tasmania’s Central Plateau just registered Australia's first -10°C of the year as southern Australia starts to feel the icy chill of a unusually strong mid-winter high pressure system.

A weather station located near the small town of Liawenee, Tas recorded a minimum temperature of -10.8.C shortly after 7:30am on Tuesday morning. Not only was this the coldest place in the country on Tuesday, but it was also the equal lowest temperature observed anywhere in Australia in two years.

Liawenee is a notorious cold spot that sits on Tasmania's Central Plateau near the western shore of yingina / Great Lake, between Miena and Brandum. The lowest temperature on record at Liawanee was -14.2°C on August 7, 2020, which is the lowest temperature ever reliably recorded in Tasmania.

Image: Liawenee after snowfall in 2022.

Other notable minimum temperatures in Tasmania on Tuesday morning included:

• -6.4°C at Fingal
• -5.0°C at Cressy
• -4.3°C at Launceston Airport, its coldest morning in five years
• -3.5°C at Wynyard, its coldest morning in nine years and coldest July morning in 22 years

Image: Frost at Sheffield, Tas on Tuesday morning. Source: @nemototasmania / Instagram

Tuesday’s bitterly cold morning was caused by a combination of a cold air mass, clear skies, light winds and subsidence associated with a strengthening high pressure system over southern Australia.

This high will continue to cause very low minimum temperatures in Tasmania and other areas of southeastern Australia over the next few mornings. The large high will also cause noticeably cold morning temperatures to spread to other areas of the country, including the tropics.

Images: Forecast minimum temperatures on Wednesday and Thursday mornings according to the ECMWF-HRES model.

Some places in southern Australia cold experience their lowest temperatures in years over the next few days. It should get cold enough for frost to form in Australia’s Red Centre on Wednesday and Thursday, while Darwin could cool to the mid-teens on Friday.