Residents in Western Australia's Kimberley region have shivered through one of the coldest starts to July on record, with some areas reporting record low day and night temperatures for the month.
The mercury plummeted to six degrees Celsius in Kununurra last Friday, days after the town endured a record low maximum daytime temperature of 19.3 degrees on July 1.
Other major centres across the region reported below average mean temperatures, with cold snaps spanning several days at Broome, Fitzroy Crossing and Halls Creek.
Bureau of Meteorology duty forecaster Angeline Prasad said the "extraordinarily low" temperatures were caused by high pressure systems over southern Australia that generated cool, dry south-easterly winds across the tropics.
She said a large cloud band also sent temperatures plunging in the East Kimberley earlier in the month.
"Normally the dry season is dry, but because of what's happening in the Indian Ocean, it's creating cloud bands over the northern parts of Australia and that's driving the daytime and overnight temperatures lower," she said.
Run on winter warmers
The unseasonably cool conditions have caught some visitors to the state's north by surprise, many of whom travelled to the region to escape the southern winter.
Rohan and Karen Richards travelled from Coffs Harbour in New South Wales to visit Broome.
Sally Town, who owns three department stores in the Pilbara and Kimberley, says tourists are buying "emergency winter clothing".
"The tourists have not been expecting the cold weather — a lot are coming up to the Kimberley to get away from the cold," she said.
"It's definitely been very different to normal for us … we normally have just a few days of winter and people will come and buy for those days, but it's certainly gone on a bit longer than expected."
Ms Town said she had ordered extra winter clothes to meet increased demand.
"You never really know how to stock up for a winter in the Kimberley or Pilbara, because a lot of the time it only lasts for a few days … some seasons we haven't had a winter at all, it just gets packed away," she said.
"We have, at the last minute, reached out to quite a few suppliers and got different winter products in … jackets, jumpers, beanies and plenty of blankets."
