Weather in Melbourne

Melbourne weather is strange. Before coming here I'd read multiple things saying that it was highly variable and could change quickly—“If you don't like the weather in Melbourne, just wait fifteen minutes” was a joke I came across that embodies this. Hilo weather is much like this as well, sometimes changing often and quickly throughout the day, so I figured Melbourne weather would be much the same.

Now, this isn't incorrect; the weather here can indeed change pretty quickly throughout the day. However, it also applies on a somewhat longer time scale. For example: it's currently December here, equivalent to June in the northern hemisphere, coming up on the southern hemisphere summer solstice on December 21st…and the high today was 20 °C (68 °F), with an overnight low of 10 °C (50 °F). This isn't exactly what I think of as summer weather, and what's more confusing is that we did have some warm weather for a week or two in November. In fact, just a week ago we had a day of 40 °C (104 °F), where it was still 32 °C (89.6 °F) when I went to bed at 11 PM and still 27 °C (80.6 °F) when I woke up at 2 in the morning. Then a day later a huge storm hit and temperatures dropped precipitously throughout the day, and the day after that the temperatures were in the single digits (Celsius) and I was putting on socks in the morning and getting my coat out of the closet again. People I've talked have indicated this isn't entirely unusual, telling me of a day some years ago when they had a huge hail storm on Christmas, giving them a white Christmas in the middle of summer.

Melbourne is about the same southern latitude (~40°) as the northern latitude of California where I grew up (~39°) so I figured the weather would be roughly similar, but in California this kind of weather would be exceedingly strange. The temperature's more complex than a simple sine curve, of course, but on the scale of a week or so it's not a bad approximation; you don't get over 100+ (Fahrenheit) temperatures one day during the summer and then have temperatures plunging towards freezing two days later. I'm not a big fan of temperature extremes—to either side, but especially cold—so I hope this isn't too common a phenomenon, or it could be a long next few couple of years! A hui hou!