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The Canberra Times
The Canberra Times
National
Peter Brewer

A summer weekend to savour, but outlook remains uncertain

After the heavy rainfall flushed out Canberra's waterways and warm weather arrived, Nick O'Shea, Tanja Binder and one-year-old Jakob O'Shea took the opportunity to spend a few hours by the water at Pine Island in Canberra's south. Picture by Keegan Carroll

Summer finally arrived on the weekend with Canberra recording its hottest temperature on Sunday since mid-March.

And the thermometer is expected to climb even higher on Monday, with a top of 29 degrees expected.

The weather station at Tuggeranong recorded a peak of 28.5 degrees at 2.55pm on Sunday, the highest in the region since March 22.

Stable weather but interspersed with patchy thunderstorms rolled through the weekend.

However, the chance of showers will ramp up on Monday to around 70 per cent, with the potential for thunderstorms - as was seen in the far west of the ACT on Sunday afternoon - rolling in as the day progresses.

On Monday, winds from the north-west will increase to between 20km/h to 30km/h, then tend more to the west as a cool front begins to move through, bringing with it the possibility of more showers and thunderstorms as it passes.

The rest of the week will hover in the mid-20s, with a 20 per cent chance of showers on Thursday but fine the rest of the time. Overnight temperatures will remain cool, dropping to 5 degrees on Friday.

As the threat of floodwaters heads further down the Murray River system, the recreational swimming areas around the ACT are flushed from the recent rainfall, free of blue-green algae and open to swimming and boating, with the warm weekend weather attracting small crowds.

Christmas markets are in full swing with a large number of visitors reported at Crookwell's twilight markets on Saturday and the Haig markets in Canberra on Sunday.

The weather was also perfect for the annual Terribly British Car Day at Queanbeyan.

Weather patterns over the coming summer months will continue to be influenced by La Nina, which the Bureau of Meteorology describes as being in a "mature" state.

La Nina typically increases the chance of above average rainfall for northern and eastern Australia, and the chance of cooler days and nights.

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