Sydney weather by month — averages, rainfall & climate trends
Australia's harbour city basks in a mild, sunny subtropical climate — warm summers cooled by sea breezes off the Pacific, gentle winters, and an outdoor life built around its beaches and famous harbour. Average temperatures and rainfall by month, a climate graph, today's conditions versus the long-term average, and how the climate has shifted since 1940 — all on one page for Sydney, Australia.
Today vs average
+2.9°Cwarmer than usual
How it’s changed
Right now
What it's doing today vs the historical average for this date.
Right now
9.0°
19°9°
19°7°20°8°18°8°
17°6°17°5°19°7°On this date — July 19
Warmer than usual · 2.9°C above the average high
- Record high: 21.9° · 2016
- Record low: 6.2° · 1957
- One year ago: 16.4°
Every July 19 in history — coldest to hottest
Dots show daily highs (top) and lows (bottom) for each July 19 on record (n = 87). Outlined dots are today's forecast.
Area we sample
Each city's history comes from one ERA5 grid cell — about 28 km across, shown by the dashed box. Near mountains or coasts, conditions can vary across the cell.
Location & data
Historical weather for Sydney is sampled from the ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at 33.87°S, 151.21°E, with daily records since 1940.
- Coordinates
- 33.87°S, 151.21°E
- Time zone
- Australia/Sydney
- Period
- 1940–2026
- Data source
- ERA5 (ECMWF)
Last 30 days
23 of the last 31 days were warmer than the historical average for that date. Average difference: +0.9°C.
Each bar is one day, from morning low to afternoon high. Warm-colored bars are days whose mean ran above average; cool bars ran below. The dot inside the bar is the daily mean. The shaded band is the typical 10–90% range expected for that date. Average = the day's mean temperature averaged across every year of record (1940–2026) for that calendar date.
This date over the years
One dot per year — the mean temperature on this calendar date. Dots are warmer or cooler than the long-term average (dashed line); the shaded band is the typical 10–90% range, and the highlighted dot is today's forecast. Based on ERA5 reanalysis — modelled estimates, not station readings.
Weather by month
Average temperatures and rainfall for each month — what a typical year looks like, from the full record.Climate overview
Sydney has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen Cfa), with mild winters and warm summers and no extreme seasonal swings. The Pacific Ocean and Tasman Sea temper the city through sea breezes, and the warm East Australian Current flows offshore, while the Great Dividing Range to the west casts a rain shadow over weather systems arriving from the interior. The contrast between coast and inland is sharp — on hot days the western suburbs can run many degrees hotter than the sea-cooled shoreline.
Heat, fire, drought and flood all shape life in Sydney. The catastrophic bushfire season of 2019-20 shrouded the city in hazardous smoke for weeks, while exceptionally wet years such as 2011, 2021 and 2022 brought record rainfall and serious flooding to the wider region. Western Sydney has seen more intense summer heatwaves since the early 1990s, and research has documented longer summers and shorter winters than in the mid-20th century, alongside warming coastal seas.
The warmest month is February, with a daily mean around 21.8°C and typical afternoon highs of 23.6°C. Around 75 nights a year stay above 20°C. At the other extreme, July averages 12.9°C, with typical overnight lows of 10.4°C. Frost is essentially unknown.
Sydney picks up roughly 936 mm a year, with a peak of 98 mm in February and as little as 51 mm in September.
Comparing the record's first decade with its most recent one, Sydney now averages 1.3°C warmer than it did in the 1940s. Recent years have brought more rain as well — the last decade sits roughly 15% over the long-term average.
Climate graph (climograph)
February is the warmest month, July the coolest — a yearly swing of 9°C. Wettest month: February (~98 mm). Whole year averages ~936 mm of rain.
Bars = average monthly rainfall (right axis). Lines = average daily high and low (left axis). Average = each month's value averaged across every year of record (1940–2026).
Monthly wind
Average daily peak wind at 10 m, by month.
Monthly solar energy
Average daily incoming solar energy in megajoules per square metre — a measured proxy for how sunny the month is.
Sydney month by month — what to expect
Typical conditions for each month, averaged across the full record (since 1940). Daylight is the time from sunrise to sunset. Record high/low are the most extreme values in the ERA5 dataset (modelled since 1940), so they can differ from official weather-station readings.
| Month | Avg high | Avg low | Rain | Daylight | Record high | Record low |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 23.7° | 20.0° | 86 mm | 14.0 h | 36.3° (1946) | 14.6° (1949) |
| February | 23.6° | 20.2° | 98 mm | 13.2 h | 33.5° (2004) | 14.5° (1993) |
| March | 22.7° | 19.1° | 94 mm | 12.3 h | 34.2° (1983) | 12.3° (1975) |
| April | 20.9° | 16.5° | 91 mm | 11.1 h | 30.9° (1940) | 10.3° (2008) |
| May | 18.5° | 13.7° | 87 mm | 10.2 h | 26.4° (1957) | 6.9° (1977) |
| June | 16.3° | 11.5° | 97 mm | 9.8 h | 23.6° (1958) | 5.4° (2010) |
| July | 15.7° | 10.4° | 57 mm | 10.0 h | 23.1° (2017) | 4.8° (2007) |
| August | 16.5° | 11.0° | 64 mm | 10.7 h | 25.7° (2024) | 6.3° (1964) |
| September | 18.3° | 12.9° | 51 mm | 11.8 h | 28.8° (1965) | 7.0° (1969) |
| October | 19.8° | 15.1° | 67 mm | 12.9 h | 32.3° (2025) | 8.6° (1942) |
| November | 21.3° | 16.9° | 78 mm | 13.8 h | 36.0° (1944) | 11.0° (2006) |
| December | 22.8° | 18.7° | 67 mm | 14.2 h | 33.9° (2004) | 12.0° (1941) |
How it has changed
Year-by-year signals from 1940 to today.Climate stripes
Annual mean shifted from 1940–1949 to 2016–2025 by +1.3°C.
Each vertical stripe is one year. Color encodes how much that year's annual mean differed from the long-term average. Average = each year's annual mean compared to the average of all years (1940–2026). cooler ← → warmer
Annual mean temperature
Long-term trend: +0.14°C per decade.
One point per year — the temperature averaged across the whole year. The dashed line is the least-squares long-term trend. Based on ERA5 reanalysis — modelled estimates, not station readings.
Seasonal warming
Jun–Aug is warming fastest: +0.15°C per decade.
Each faint line is one three-month period's average per year; the bold dashed line is its long-term trend. Different parts of the year often warm at different rates. Based on ERA5 reanalysis — modelled estimates, not station readings.
Hot days vs frost days
Days ≥ 30°C per year: 1.7 early in the record → 4.4 recently. Frost days: 0 → 0.
Thin lines are raw yearly counts; thick lines are the smoothed trend that removes year-to-year noise. The hot-day threshold is auto-picked per city so the line actually moves. Average = a centered 5-year rolling average to smooth weather noise.
Yearly hot & cold extremes
All-time high in 1946, all-time low in 2007: 36.3°C / 4.8°C.
One point per year — the single hottest and coldest day recorded that year.
Annual rainfall
~936 mm/year on average. Last decade ran +15% vs that average. Long-term trend: +23 mm per decade.
One bar per year of total rainfall. Dashed line is the long-term average. Average = the average annual rainfall across every year of record (1940–2026).
Day-by-day grid
Each tiny square is one calendar day across the full record — ~30,000 days per city. Use the mode switch above the chart: Anomaly colors each day by how far it ran from the historical average for that date (red = warmer, blue = cooler), Daily mean temp shows the absolute mean temperature for the day (useful to see seasons and heatwaves), and Precipitation shows daily rainfall (useful to spot wet/dry seasons and droughts). Average = the long-term average for that calendar date (1940–2026).