If you had trouble sleeping over the past couple of nights in Brisbane, this is why.
- With a Monday morning minimum of 25.3°C followed by 25.1°C this Tuesday, Brisbane just sweated through its warmest pair of December nights on record.
- There have been warmer individual December nights where the mercury failed to dip below 26°C, but never in more than 100 years of records have two minimums in a row topped 25°C.
- For the record, Brisbane’s long-term December average minimum is 20.6°C.
Why has Brisbane been so warm the last couple of nights?
In addition to the warm tropical air which has been funnelled over southern Queensland and much of southern Australia over the last week, cloud is a large part of the equation.
Image: Satellite image of southeast Queensland early on December 10, 2024.
The image above shows a consistent layer of cloud over the Brisbane metro area and beyond at 6am Tuesday.
That cloud hung around all night and acted like a blanket, preventing warmth from escaping after the temperature had reached a muggy 31°C on Monday afternoon.
Typical for summer, Brisbane was also just a little too far north to receive any relief from the cooler southerlies which knocked a few degrees off both maximums and minimums in the southeastern capitals, including Sydney.
So over the last couple of nights, Brisbane has been doing its best impression of Cairns in Queensland’s tropical north – and will likely stay uncomfortably warm into Wednesday morning as cloud and humidity persist.
Indeed, Brisbane was significantly warmer than Cairns over both of the last two nights, with Cairns dipping to 23.1°C on Monday and then 21.3°C this morning.
Image: Satellite view of Cairns and nearby areas on the morning of Dec 10, 2024.
As the image above shows, there was no large expanse of cloud to prevent nocturnal cooling over the Cairns area. This again illustrates the part played by cloud in Brisbane’s warm minimums.
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