Weekend wrap-up

The few days either side of today are considered to be on average the warmest for the Northern Hemisphere and the coldest for the Southern Hemisphere, and weather in both Sydney and Jyväskylä over the weekend stuck true to that theory.

Sydney saw a rather cold weekend. After a top of only 15.8C last Friday at Sydney Airport, Saturday and Sunday were even colder. Both days failed to go above 15C; Saturday was the cooler of the two reaching only 14.3C with Sunday getting to 14.8C. July 13 still holds the lowest daily maximum of month and year so far with 14.1C. Overnight temperatures were fairly average for this time of year with 7.7C on Saturday and 9.9C yesterday.

The idea of 'dry July' could be applied to the weather seen in Sydney this month. The current monthly rainfall total is a measly 4.4mm and forecasts show only a slight chance of rain in the coming week. If the month ends with no additional falls it will be the 4th driest July since 1930. July in 1970 saw no rain at all at the Airport.

Observatory Hill has seen only 4.0mm. That would also be the 4th driest on record if no more rain falls. Records there date back to 1858.

The excellent summer weather seen in Jyväskylä continued over the weekend. There were a few scattered storms and showers around on both days, but temperatures climbed over 25C again. Both days were very similar with minimums of 14.6C and 13.5C, and maximums of 26.4C and 26.1C respectively.

Clouds building over Laukaa during the afternoon of July 19

Isolated storms and showers developed during both afternoons. A good indicator of how isolated and scattered these storms were can be seen by the photo below. It absolutely poured for around 10 minutes in the city area of Jyväskylä and led to minor flooding in the city. However, the weather station at Tikkakoski received no rainfall across the whole weekend.

Heavy rain fell in the city area of Jyväskylä in the evening of July 19

This week will see a continuation of the current warm spell. Temperatures could even climb a couple of degrees higher to 28C or 29C on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Current forecasts show this weather continuing into early next week.