Australia holds many heat-related records: the continent has the hottest extended region year-round, the areas with the hottest summer climate, and the highest sunshine duration.
Australia is well known for its scorching summers. The heat can be quite a shock to international students, particularly those from cooler countries. For students from the Northern Hemisphere, celebrating Christmas in summer can be pretty weird, too!
The northern section of Australia has a more tropical influenced climate, hot and humid in the summer, and quite warm and dry in the winter, while the southern parts are cooler with mild summers and cool, sometimes rainy winters.
Hint: Africa is the second-largest and second-most populous continent in the world, after Asia in both cases. It is 30.37 million square km in area and has a population of 121.61 crore. It is also known as the world's hottest continent.
Is Australia hotter than India? India is closer to the equator as compared to Australia, and is therefore expected to be hotter. The average temperature in most of the interior regions of India is 90–104 °F. Whereas in Australia the average temperature in summer is 86 °F.
1. Marble Bar, Western Australia. Marble Bar claims to be the hottest town in Australia. It holds the record for the highest average monthly maximum temperature, which is 41.5°C in December.
Oodnadatta, South Australia
Of course we Aussies don't have to travel far to feel the heat, especially during the Australian summer months. The record for the highest official temperature ever recorded in Australia belongs to the remote outback town of Oodnadatta in South Australia.
On average, Bangkok is about 10°C hotter than the locations in Australia!
New research suggests that, if the planet keeps warming at current rates, much of the top third of Australia could soon be too hot for people to live in.
Australia's annual average temperatures are projected to increase 0.4–2.0 °C above 1990 levels by the year 2030, and 1–6 °C by 2070. Average precipitation in the southwest and southeast Australia is projected to decline during this time, while regions such as the northwest may experience increases in rainfall.
Australia's unusually harsh sunshine results mainly from its location in the Southern Hemisphere. The elliptical orbit of the Earth places the Southern Hemisphere closer to the sun during its summer months than the Northern Hemisphere during its summer.
The highest temperature ever recorded in Australia is 50.7 °C (123.3 °F), which was recorded on 2 January 1960 at Oodnadatta, South Australia and 13 January 2022 at Onslow, Western Australia. The lowest temperature ever recorded in Australia is −23.0 °C (−9.4 °F), at Charlotte Pass, New South Wales, on 29 June 1994.
The town is an ex-Hydro village and now a residence for Inland Fisheries Services (IFS) and a Tasmania Police station. It is known for its exceptional fishing at nearby Great Lake and hosts several trout fishing events. Liawenee is the coldest permanently-inhabited place in Australia.
At 1,755 metres above sea level, the weather station at Charlotte Pass (Kosciuszko Chalet) in New South Wales, holds the current record for the lowest temperature observed in Australia, with -23.0C on 29 June 1994.
For interest, Australia's highest official temperature is 50.7°C at Oodnadatta in South Australia on 2 January 1960 and the last 50 degree temperature in the country was 50.5°C at Mardie Station in Western Australia on 19 February 1998.
The city of Perth has the best weather/climate in Australia. The city enjoys a temperate Mediterranean climate with hot and dry summers and mild but wet winters. Perth is also the sunniest capital city in Australia and is considered one of the hottest experiencing over 250+ days of sunny blue skies.
Perth, Western Australia
In fact, it's officially the sunniest capital city in the world, with an average of eight hours of sun per day, year-round. It's wonderfully close to Fremantle and Rottnest Island too, so you can take home a suitcase full of brightly-lit quokka selfies.
Hell hath no fury like the Western Australian outback with scorching temperatures setting flames to world records this week. On Monday thermometers reached 46.1 degrees at Learmonth Airport making the tiny RAAF base in Exmouth the single hottest place on Earth so far in February 2023.
Australia's warmest year on record was 2019. The eight years from 2013–20 all rank among the 10 warmest years on record. The long-term warming trend means that most years are now warmer than almost any observed during the 20th century.
That depends on where you are, they are both massive countries. Technically the highest recorded temperature in the US summer is probably higher but the trick there is recorded as there are limited monitoring stations in the middle of the Australian desert.
Yes, Australia is warmer, but for about three months of the year you can barely go outside because it's so hot. In NZ there's a far more temperate climate. It might be colder in winter, but it's easier to bundle up for a couple of months than it is to be constantly sweating from October to March.
Australia, however, is strikingly diverse with climate matches to India, California, South Africa, central Italy and Buenos Aires. Perhaps surprisingly, many parts of the neighbouring island of Tasmania are closer to the United Kingdom and Ireland than the sunnier regions of Australia's climate map.
How hot is the hottest country on Earth? Mali, the hottest country on Earth, has an average annual temperature of 28.83°C / 83.89°F. While this may not seem excessively hot, it's important to remember that these are overall averages, including day and night temperatures across all seasons.