The first few days of 2026 will be perfect beach weather for Perth residents, with temperatures set to remain in the low to mid-thirties until at least Monday.
New Year’s Day is currently bringing a maximum of 35.6C to the city, to be followed by 34C on Friday, and 34C for Saturday and Sunday.
According to Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Jessica Lingard, the spell of balmy weather is caused by a trough heading down the west coast like the one that caused the sweltering 42C maximum on Christmas Day.
“Some of (the troughs) linger around and drive the temperature up into the 40s and we have heatwaves, and other times we just get this nice run of really quite pleasant summery weather,” she said.
“This trough is going to be hanging around with us all the way through until about Sunday, and then overnight into Monday it does move inland a little bit, so we do have some slightly cooler temperatures for the start of next week down into the high 20s.
“We’ll ride this roller-coaster of the west coast trough forming and some warmer temperatures, and the trough moving inland and getting that cooler break.”
Monday will reach a top of 31C, Tuesday 28C and Wednesday 30C, after which we’ll experience a positively chilly 17C overnight minimum.
Residents in the metropolitan area can expect some haze to start their days on Friday and Saturday, which Ms Lingard said was “indicative” of the bushfires that have been blazing around Perth in the past few days.
She said it was caused by a fascinating weather phenomenon.
“What can happen is overnight we get what’s called an inversion forming, so the temperature of the atmosphere should be warmest at the surface and go up, and then it should decrease in temperatures as you move away (from the surface),” Ms Lingard said.
“Overnight that can flip and you end up with the cold air at the surface and slightly warmer air above it … you can’t mix between these inverted layers of temperature, so you end up with this ‘lid’ feature.
“If you’ve got any bushfires burning, the smoke has nowhere to go overnight so it hits the ‘lid’ and then spreads out over the metro area.
“You can wake up to a bit of a hazy start to the day until the sun starts to warm that surface layer up and that temperature inversion rights itself again.”
PERTH WEATHER FORECAST
- Thursday: Sunny, max 35☀️
- Friday: Sunny, 20-34 ☀️
- Saturday: Sunny, 21-34 ☀️
- Sunday: Sunny, 21-34 ☀️
- Monday: Sunny, 20-31 ☀️
- Tuesday: Sunny, 19-28 ☀️
- Wednesday: Mostly sunny, 17-30⛅️
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.perthnow.com.au ’
