Weather News

Gold Coast hotter than Brisbane

Brett Dutschke, Wednesday December 17, 2014 - 15:09 AEDT

Much of southeast Queensland reached the mid-to-high thirties today, even Coolangatta reached 37 degrees, hotter than Brisbane and its hottest day in 11 years.

Coolangatta Airport reached 37.1 degrees, 10 degrees above average, with help from northwesterly winds holding out a cooling sea breeze. These persistent northwesterlies allowed it to become two degrees hotter than Brisbane which had been getting frequent light sea breezes.

It is only the fourth time in the past 30 years that Coolangatta has been this hot and it is even rarer for it to be this hot and also hotter than Brisbane. Only once in the past 30 years has Coolangatta reached 37 degrees and been hotter than Brisbane. In November 1995, Coolangatta hit 37.9 degrees while Brisbane reached 36.1 degrees.

Coolangatta, being about 13km nearer the coast, almost always gets a more prominent sea breeze than Brisbane, hence rarely experiences extreme heat.

Today the sea breeze only arrived in Coolangatta at 12:30pm, but it did drop the temperature sharply, seven degrees in 30 minutes. Meanwhile, Brisbane has been between 33 and 35 degrees from mid morning to mid afternoon.

Brisbane's sea breeze did have the effect of keeping the city cooler but it did increase the humidity. It made it feel like 37 degrees for most of the day, adding stress to the Australian bowlers at the Gabba. The sea breeze should freshen in the city during the afternoon, allowing it to cool, to 30 degrees by about 6pm. A weak southerly change will arrive during the night, making tomorrow a couple degrees cooler, although it should still exceed 35 degrees in western suburbs.

More significant cooling relief will come in the form of a heavy shower or thunderstorm during Thursday afternoon and evening, heavy enough to bring more than 20 millimetres of rain in short time and drop the temperature to the mid 20s.

Come Friday, wind will turn more northwesterly, bumping the temperature back up to the mid 30s in the city and low-to-mid 30s on the Gold Coast. A stronger cooler change should arrive late in the day, leading to near average temperatures for the next week or so.

- Weatherzone

© Weatherzone 2014

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