Winter in Australia

Australian winter runs from June to August. It looks nothing like the popular image of the country. While the tropical north stays warm and dry, the southern states, the alpine fringe and the inland plateaus turn genuinely cold, with hard frosts, single-digit days and long heating seasons.

These guides rank all 213 cities and towns in our database on the metrics that actually matter in winter: how cold the mornings get, how often frost forms, how much heating a home needs, and how short the days become. Every figure comes from 2024 observations, so treat them as a recent-year reference rather than a long-term climate normal.

All figures are derived from the Open-Meteo Historical Weather API for the 2024 calendar year, covering 213 Australian cities and towns. Winter metrics use the June, July and August months. Frost days count calendar days where the recorded minimum reached or fell below 0°C. Heating degree days are an estimate built from monthly mean temperatures, explained in full on the heating degree days page. Day length is calculated from latitude at the solstices and reflects the time between sunrise and sunset, not cloud or twilight.