The east coast of Australia is suffering through an icy weekend with the frosty temperatures expected to last into the middle of the week.
The lowest temperature recorded in Sydney was at Penrith, which dropped to below zero degrees, recording -0.9C at 5am on Sunday morning and not reaching above 1C until after 8am.
Other areas of Sydney to record low temperatures were 4.5C at Sydney Airport and 5.1C at Sydney’s Observatory Hill.
A strong westerly wind of 24km/h overnight played a role in causing the icy temperatures across the state.
Sydney recorded temperatures as low as 4.5 degrees at Sydney Airport and 5.1 degrees at Sydney’s Observatory Hill
The east coast of Australia is suffering through an icy weekend with the frosty temperatures expected to last into the middle of the week
Inland New South Wales is also suffering through the cold with Wagga Wagga recording morning temperatures of -0.3C.
The lowest forecast temperatures for all of New South Wales on Sunday are at Thredbo, expected to reach a daily maximum of only 1C.
And according to Bureau of Meteorology Senior Forecaster Jake Phillips the east coast’s glacial conditions have yet to reach their trough.
‘Just about the whole state is cooler than average for this time of year. In some parts of the state it can be five or six degrees below average,’ he told Daily Mail Australia.
‘Places like Penrith and Richmond the next couple of mornings are going to be down to the zero mark – maybe even below zero.
One Canberra resident shared a photo of what the cold snap did to a leaky tap overnight
‘And it’s going to get even colder, with a lot of places set to be six or even eight degrees below average for their minimum temperatures over the weekend.’
Melbourne temperatures weren’t quite as low as Sydney but that doesn’t mean Melburnians weren’t suffering through the cold snap.
Residents woke to temperatures as low as 7C on Saturday morning with a daily high of 9.3C.
Elsewhere in eastern Australia, the notoriously frosty city of Ballarat in central Victoria had its coldest July day in 24 years this week recording a maximum of 5C on Wednesday, one degree below the July average.
In the nearby city Bendigo, temperatures were also at a record low, freezing through its coldest July day since 1996 with a maximum recording of just 0C.
The cold weather pushed well up into Queensland with the outback town of Blackall dropping to 1.2C while Lochington, near Emerald, was just 0.5C at 7.11am.
Brisbane experienced temperatures of 5 degrees on Sunday morning, even Rockhampton, up on the state’s central coast, dropped to a low of 6.5C just before 7am.
Many Canberra residents awoke to fields of frost as far as the eye could see
Forecasters are expecting conditions to remain below average until Tuesday or Wednesday.
‘We’re definitely not through the cold snap as yet, you couldn’t say that,’ Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Jonti Hall told AAP.
‘It’ll gradually get a bit milder through the overnight period – particularly over most of eastern Queensland – from Tuesday, Wednesday, next week.’
On Sunday, Newcastle, on the NSW central coast, recorded early morning temperatures of 5.5C while Coffs Harbour was as low as 3C at sunrise on Sunday.
Wollongong, south of Sydney, recorded lows of 7C in the morning and reaching just 11C by midday.
However the coldest temperatures along eastern Australia was clearly Canberra which recorded temperatures as low as -4.8C on Sunday morning.
Some people took to social media to put a comical spin on the freezing temperatures the East Coast is enduring
As of 9am on Saturday morning Canberra was still suffering through temperatures of 0.1C.
It follows a week in the ACT which has seen temperatures drop to as low as -8.5C on Wednesday.
The current frosty conditions are a result of a dry air mass moving across Eastern Australia ‘clearing out skies and allowing heat to escape at night’, 9 News reported.
Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Rick Threlfall told 9 News conditions were perfect for creating a massive cold snap.
‘We’ve got clear skies, very dry air and very light winds, so the perfect combination to allow those temperatures to fall away,’ he said.