Summer is almost over, but it looks like the weather has finally got the memo.
Daytime temperatures climbed to just over 32 degrees on Tuesday, and are set to hover around 30 degrees for the rest of the week.
Saturday should bring a slight reprieve from the heat, along with some perfect picnic weather, with an expected high of 24 degrees.
Don't rush to put those rain jackets in storage just yet; there's a chance of evening thunderstorms and possible showers on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.
Rain, rain, go away
A week of summery weather will come as a nice change for many Canberrans after a year of record-breaking rainfall.
The release of the Bureau of Meteorology's annual climate data last week confirms what many ACT residents may have long suspected: 2021 was a particularly cool, wet year for Australia's capital.
Rainfall was 50 per cent above average last year in the ACT; well above the 9 per cent increase to the national rainfall average.
BOM sites at Canberra, Sutton, Aranda, Torrens and Bruce all recorded over 1000mms of rainfall in 2021, breaking their highest total annual rainfall records.
Aranda and Canberra led the 2021 rainfall tallies, with more than 1100mms recorded in each suburb.
Canberrans residing outside those five areas needn't fear being left out of the record-breaking action, with last November the wettest on record ACT-wide.
As many riverside residents likely recall, all that wet weather saw both the Murrumbidgee and lower Molonglo rivers flood on several occasions.
Senior Climatologist for the Bureau of Meteorology Blair Trewin said that the high rainfalls, floods and cyclones seen across much of Eastern Australia last year can be largely attributed to a well-known weather phenomenon.
"La Nina was the big player here. We had those conditions in place during the 2020-2021 summer, and then again during Spring."
"This was the fifth wettest year on record in the ACT, and all four years wetter than this one were also La Nina years," said Mr Trewin.
On a more positive note, all that wet weather also brought welcome relief for the long-dwindling Southern Murray Darling Basin, with strong major water storage increases.
Playing it cool
Heatstroke-prone Canberrans certainly got some relief in 2021.
Temperatures in the ACT were around 1.5 per cent below the average over recent decades.
Tuggeranong had its lowest annual average daily temperature since records began, and Canberra Airport its lowest since 1996.
Last year Canberra Airport only had three days with a maximum temperature of 35 degrees Celsius or more. In contrast, there were 33 such days in 2019.
Although 2021 was Australia's coolest year since 2012 and marked a shift away from the drought and bushfires of the preceding years, temperatures were still 0.56 per cent above the historical national average.
"The temperatures we had last year would have been a normal year in the 1980s, and it would have been an above-normal year in the 50s or 60s", said Mr Trewin.
What's next?
Despite a warm reprieve this week, Canberrans can likely expect more cool, wet weather in the months ahead until the current La Nina event breaks down in Autumn as expected.
"One of the things you do tend to see during La Nina summers is fewer warm extremes, and that's certainly been the case this year. Canberra hasn't yet been above 33 this summer which is unusual," Mr Trewin said.
"The outlook does still lean towards relatively wet and relatively cool conditions."
Keep those umbrellas handy, Canberra.
