Since June 1, Melbourne, the great metropolis of South Australia (five million inhabitants) has not seen the thermometer exceed 15 degrees. Seventeen consecutive days below this threshold, it had not happened for 109 years at this time of year, the end of autumn, the beginning of the austral winter. And during the night, the mercury should drop in the next few days around 5 to 6 degrees.
This week, the thermometer also fell to an exceptionally low level in the capital Canberra (the lowest for 58 years). It snowed in the mountains inland, the heaviest snowfall in more than half a century there too.
The snow depth in the Australian Alps is at highest for this early in the season since 1968. (Spoiler alert, though, conditions have turned slushier in many places as conditions warm up.) (Source: SnowyHydro, Weatherzone’s @Ben_Domensino ) pic.twitter.com/8TESQZygyF
—Peter Hannam (@p_hannam) June 16, 2022
And further north on the Sunshine Coast, in the big city of Brisbane, where everyone usually walks around in shorts and T-shirts almost all year round, the temperature has dropped below 20 degrees. It’s chilly over there.
The explanation is a series of cold, dry fronts brought by winds from Antarctica. On the southern coast of Australia, gusts have exceeded 100 km / h in recent days. And it’s not over, new cold fronts are announced next week, for the official start of winter. Meteorologists say they have a hard time making predictions beyond a week. Given the exceptional intensity of this cold wave, it is difficult not to make a link with climate change, one of the manifestations of which is precisely these episodes of high intensity weather. And knowing that just before, in recent months, Australia has experienced a particularly hot autumn.
The consequences are multiple. There are some positive consequences: ski resorts in the provinces of Victoria and New South Wales are already rubbing their hands. Wind power plants are running at full speed with the wind, they have produced in recent days more than 15% of the country’s electricity. But the main consequence is negative: the electrical network is under tension. The Australians turned on the heating earlier than expected. And the power stations were not ready: many of them are still under maintenance in this season. Chain effect: the national electricity quotation market was suspended the day before yesterday, this is unprecedented. There were too many risks of speculation.
AEMO today announced that it has suspended the spot market in all regions of the National Electricity Market from 2:05 p.m. (AEST), under the National Electricity Rules. Our statement here: https://t.co/hiYAKFl7Lt pic.twitter.com/AMNgE8zItj
— AEMO (@AEMO_Energy) June 15, 2022
And above all, in several cities, notably Sydney, the electricity operator has called on residents to limit their consumption, in particular between 5 p.m. (it is sunset time at the moment) and 9 p.m. For example, it is advisable to run dishwashers only at night, when lying down. Otherwise, there are real risks of blackouts and power cuts.
The subject is eminently political on the mainland island after decades of blindness by Australian governments; cliimato-skepticism, denial of global warming, renewed investments in fossil fuels and lack of creation of a real national electricity network. So each province of the country has tinkered in its corner. Except that today, the south would need more interconnection with the North of the country to cope with the situation. “In a rich country like ours, asking people to limit their electricity consumption is really disturbing”, writes today the editorialist of the daily Sydney Morning Herald. It is up to the brand new Labor government, elected a month ago, to finally take things seriously.