The Queensland Maroons took this week's first State of Origin Match in Sydney, then brought home the southern chill too. And at least one local was very confused by it.

This rather unamused horse was captured standing in a chilly frost-covered paddock at Crediton, an elevated rural locality about 90 minutes west of Mackay, where the valleys are around 800 metres above sea level.

Image: We can understand why you've got a long face this morning, horsey. Source: A.L. Tippett via Instagram.

Queensland temperatures fell to sub-zero levels overnight at numerous locations across at least five forecast districts. These included:

Capricornia

• Biloela -1.2°C

Maranoa and Warrego

• Charleville -0.9°C
• Roma -1.8°C

Darling Downs and Granite Belt

• Dalby -1.5°C
• Miles -0.6°C
• Toowoomba -0.8°C
• Wellcamp airport -2.4°C

Wide Bay and Burnett

• Kingaroy -2.3°C

Southeast Coast

• Beaudesert -0.6°C
• Canungra -1°C

Temps also dropped to near-freezing at several towns best known for their extreme summer heat, such as Longreach in the Central West (2.0°C) and Thargomindah (2.7°C) in the Channel Country, out near the spot where the Qld, SA and NSW borders meet.

It's also worth mentioning that while no sub-zero temps were recorded at weather stations in the Central Coast-Whitsundays forecast district, heavy frost was recorded in the valleys west of Mackay, as you've seen from the image at the top of this story.

Why such cold overnight temps in Queensland?

To see subzero temperatures across such a large part of Australia's second-largest state, you need two things: cold air from the south, and clear skies.

That's been the case for much of the week in Queensland now, which is illustrated well on the image below, which was captured just after 9 am AEST.

As you can see, Antarctic air continues to push north to the east of the high pressure system centred over the Great Australian Bight, while the weather radar shows that Queensland is totally free of the green precipitation blobs indicating rain – a rarity indeed for 2022 to date.

For the record, the coldest Queensland temperature ever recorded was the -10.6°C in 1961 at Queensland's "snow capital" Stanthorpe (as in, the town where it very occasionally snows).

No temperature records have been broken in this current spell of cold Queensland overnight minimums, but the prolonged cold over several nights has definitely got locals rugging up.

• Six locations had their coldest night this early in the year for 22 years, including the -0.8°C at Toowoomba mentioned above, as well as Mackay Airport (4.3).
• Brisbane Airport shivered through its coldest minimum this early in the year in 16 years (4.9°C), while Brisbane had its coldest maximum of 2022 to date on Tuesday, with a top of just 16.9°C.

The city just managed to top 20°C yesterday, but will struggle to get beyond the teens until at least next Monday, with overnight minimums as low as 6°C.