Sudden 30C temperature rise over Antarctica upends Australia's spring outlook

The temperature high above Antarctica has climbed more than 30 degrees Celsius in the past week.

This is known as Sudden Stratospheric Warming (SSW), an event that has the potential to disrupt weather patterns across Australia for months.

SSWs are extremely rare in the Southern Hemisphere, with only two major events documented in the past 60 years — one in 2002 and the other in 2019, and both resulted in some of the most devastating bushfires in Australia's history.

While a wetter background environment should prevent a repeat of Black Summer in 2025, the warming has thrown a major spanner in the works of the spring forecast — a shift already being felt throughout the country, including the current run of unseasonable heat along the east coast.

Sudden Stratospheric Warming explained

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