Super sunny winter days and clear skies have led to a streak of frosty mornings in Canberra, the weather bureau says, noting a chilly start to the month.
Temperatures dropped to minus 5.3 degrees just after 7am on Wednesday.
This was much lower than the August average minimum temperature of 1.3 degrees, Angus Hines from the Bureau of Meteorology said. He said the morning temperatures so far this month were averaging at minus 3.5 degrees.
The senior meteorologist said Saturday morning was the coldest this month, when it was minus 5.6 degrees.
"It's likely to be cool again tomorrow, with the forecast minimum of minus 3 degrees overnight, [Wednesday night] and early [Thursday] morning," Mr Hines said.
Morning lows are expected to rest between 0 and 2 degrees for much of the rest of the week after a slightly windier day on Thursday.
Mr Hines said high atmospheric pressure areas were leading to continuously still and mostly cloud-free nights in the ACT. The combination of clear and calm nights with cold air had forced temperatures to drop, resulting in frosty mornings.
"Typical winter reasons ... we've had some cold air move up and across eastern Australia behind some cold fronts. Once cold fronts clear up, they've been followed in by high-pressure areas," Mr Hines said.
"We've seen that pattern quite often actually, over the last couple of months."
The meteorologist pointed to a number of cold outbreaks in June and July, and said the streak had continued into August.
However, there was some relief in the forecast towards the end of the week as warmer weather was expected to move across the region from central parts of Australia.
Maximum temperatures are expected to be about 18 degrees later in the week, with the added probability of rain gradually increasing at the weekend.
"It certainly has been much cooler than August last year. Of course, we've only had a week so far, so these numbers will certainly change," Mr Hines said.
"I know we had a few similar patterns to that last year, but they didn't come through with as much regularity as they've been coming through this year; the cold outbreaks last year were ... more spread apart."
