Arabic version: شتاء قياسي الدفء ينذر بربيع حار لعواصم الجنوب الشرقي

According to ABC News, Australia is ending an exceptionally mild winter, with modelling favouring unprecedented heat across the country through spring. Sydney and Melbourne recorded their warmest winters in Bureau of Meteorology records dating to the 1850s, while Canberra had its highest winter temperatures and Adelaide and Hobart are set for their second-warmest winter.

Sydney’s mean winter temperature was 15.3C, or 2.3C above its long-term average. Hobart averaged 10.4C, equal to Melbourne’s long-term winter average, while Melbourne recorded a mean of 12.2C. The season also brought few extreme cold days and scarce snow, including a fourth consecutive winter without snowfall in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney.

Warm north-westerly winds are expected to lift temperatures about 5C above normal on the first day of spring. Canberra is predicted to reach 21C, while Melbourne and Adelaide are forecast to reach 22C. Sydney is forecast to see 25C to 27C, with a predicted 27C on Wednesday, and Brisbane could reach 31C on Thursday and Friday.

The Bureau of Meteorology’s ACCESS-S model forecasts the next three months could be the warmest Australian spring on record across southern states. Much of southern Australia is predicted to be 2C to 3C above the 1981-to-2018 average, with more than an 80 per cent chance of unusually high maximum temperatures across the south. Early-summer forecasts also indicate temperatures well above average across most of Australia.