November 2013 Review - Sydney

Sydney experienced an above average November this year. Both the average minimum and maximum were comfortably above the long term averages. Despite that, the average minimum was the lowest in the period since 2009. Looking at the Bureau of Meteorology's records, it was actually the lowest average minimum in the last decade. The following table shows the averages since 2009.

November averages at Sydney Airport for the period 2009-2013

While the average minimum was clearly the lowest, the average maximum was right in the middle of the 5 year period. Long term averages stand at 15.4C and 24.0C. As for the extremes, the highest temperature of the month occurred on November 3 when it reached 34.9C. This was again the median for the 5 years. The coldest temperature of the month was a few days later when it dropped to 11.9C on November 6.

The lowest maximum of 18.2C was on November 17, also the median for 2009-2013 period, and the highest minimum of 20.1C occurred on November 22. This was the second lowest of the period. Only just though, thanks to 2011's 20.0C.

Another thing to point out is that November actually had a lower average maximum than both September (25.1C) and October (26.2C). The graph below highlights November's lack of warm days in comparison to the previous 2 months.

Number of days above certain temperatures for September to November 2013

Rainfall for the month was quite high. The monthly total of 180.4mm easily surpassed the average of 81.2mm. Only 4 Novembers since 1929 have seen greater totals. It was also the highest November total since 1984 when 362.4mm was recorded. The bulk of the rain fell across November 15 and 16. The late evening of November 15 saw 58.2mm fall in only 2 hours as heavy showers and storms affected most of Sydney.

November 2013 saw a few windy days, although the maximum gust wasn't quite as strong as previous months. A wind gust of 78km/h was recorded twice, only a few days apart on November 22 and 25. July was the previous month with a lower maximum gust, 67km/h.

On a national scale, a climatologist at BoM released an article on December 1 detailing Australia's warmest spring on record. In a way this seems like a sensationalist headline though as it should be noted that the average for the whole 2013 season was the highest above a 1961-1990 average used by BoM, discounting years prior to 1961 and only taking into account records from 1991 onwards. However, with the gradual warming experienced in the last century it certainly sounds like it was indeed the warmest spring on record.