It’s day one of winter 2023 in Australia and some parts of the country have already endured their first sub-zero morning of the season. But who had the coldest start to winter this year?

The Australian continent has around 600 weather stations spread across eight states and territories. Surprisingly, only five of these recorded temperatures lower than 0ºC on Thursday morning, the first morning of winter 2023.

Glen Innes in NSW wins a proverbial prize for being the only official weather station on the Australian mainland to dip below zero degrees on June 1, 2023, reaching -1.0ºC shortly after 6am AEST. Glen Innes also takes the title for the coldest town in Australia on the opening morning of winter.

The other four places that chilled below 0ºC on the first morning of winter were in Tasmania, and most of them were mountains.

Hartz Mountain and Mount Read achieved a commendable -0.9ºC and -1.5ºC, respectively, on Thursday morning.

Liawenee’s temperature dropped even further on Thursday morning, hitting -2.7ºC just before 5:30am. While Liawenee has a permanent population of two (yes, two people), we feel this isn’t enough to compete for the coldest town in Australia. Sorry you two.

Image: Liawenee, Tasmania.

And now for the national title! The coldest place in Tasmania and Australia on the first morning of winter was kunanyi / Mount Wellington, where the mercury plunged to -3.4ºC just before 7am on Thursday, June 1.

While this morning’s sub-zero temperatures may sound cold to most Australians, it’s unusual to only have five weather stations in the whole country register negative temperatures on the first morning of winter. The last time this happened was in 2013, when Thredbo, NSW and Wandering, WA were the only two places in Australia to drop below 0ºC on June 1.