Hot day in Sydney, windy and slightly warmer in Jyväskylä

Summery weather arrived in Sydney today in slightly unexpected fashion. Forecasts yesterday had predicted tops around 28C for today, but temperatures across the city rose above 33C. Sydney Airport recorded the highest temperature in the Sydney region with a top of 33.5C just after 2:30pm. All other stations topped 30C.

Surprisingly, the Airport's maximum today is the third highest temperature seen this year. Currently the highest maximum for 2014 is the 36.8C recording from January 2. That is the only day to have surpassed 35C so far. Since 2009, only 2012 hadn't seen more than one day above 35C by the end of September. 2011 had seen six. The second hottest day so far this year is February 26 when it reached 34.9C, making today the warmest in just over seven months.

The weekend saw a cooler day on Saturday with a top of only 20.3C at the Airport, but Sunday warmed up to 24.3C. Minimums were comfortably above 10C.

If we look at Bureau of Meteorology records for the Airport, we find that today was actually the 11th warmest September day since the records began in 1939. Tomorrow is forecast to reach a similar temperature as seen today, but a weak southerly change later in the evening will mean that October should start off fairly cool. Maximums of 21C to 23C are then expected for the remainder of the working week.

On the back of a recovery in temperatures late last week, Jyväskylä saw a reasonably comfortable autumn weekend. Maximums for both Saturday and Sunday reached around 13C. Minimums were up on the previous week also. After Friday's 5.1C minimum, Saturday and Sunday both held temperatures above 5C. That was the first three day period above the mark in almost two weeks.

Today has been a bit warmer still. It has gotten above 14C, but appears to have fallen short of 15C. In the years between 2009 and 2013, no days beyond September 30 went above 15C.

Autumn colours in Jyväskylä's suburb of Mäki-Matti on September 29

It was quite windy this afternoon across Central Finland. Gusts at Tikkakoski were recorded around the 15m/s mark (54km/h). These were some of the strongest gusts seen for quite some time. A few isolated showers also rolled west just north of the city. Tikkakoski recorded 0.4mm between 4pm and 5pm.

The weather outlook for Jyväskylä for the next week or so looks to be fairly stable. Partly cloudy, and dry conditions are expected along with maximums between 8C and 12C. Wednesday is currently the only day tipped to dip below zero until early next week.