Adelaide weather: Christmas 2019, the Bureau of Meteorology gives us a sneak peek at what’s in store

Searching for the Adelaide Christmas weather forecast? Here’s an early look at what’s in store as the big day approaches.

The latest Bureau of Meteorology Climate Outlook suggests a warmer and drier than average day is on the cards.

Supervising meteorologist Matt Bass says the average maximum temperature on Christmas Day in Adelaide at West Terrace is 27.9C and the forecast is likely to be warmer than average.

“So typically quite nice conditions, but this time of the year in Adelaide anyway, as I’m sure anyone knows, locally we do tend to see quite large swings in temperature in the early summer period,” he said.

“If we get the northerlies, we can easily spike up to 40 degrees and if we get a decent cool change it will be in the low 20s or so, so in some ways the average of 28 hides the fact that we do have quite a lot of variability.”

Three of the last four Christmas Days have been hot, above 35C. Last year the mercury reached 36.2C at West Terrace (37.9C at Kent Town, then 2017 was 29.4C, 2016 was 41.3C, 2015 was 37.2C and 2014 was 23.5C).

“The hottest ever Christmas Day we’ve had at the West Terrace site was 42.1C all the way back in 1888, so a pretty long time ago,” Mr Bass said.

But there’s a fairly large gap in the record for West Terrace, which is now the official site for Adelaide. Observations cover the years 1871–1979 and 2017 to the present day.

Kent Town was fills in the gap from 1977 to 2017 but the Bureau says obstruction by nearby buildings is potentially jeopardising the reliability of measurements at that site.

And don’t worry about getting wet because 80 per cent of the time it’s totally dry on Christmas Day, Mr Bass says, and then the chance of getting at least five or more millimetres is around 8 per cent.

The last time we had any measurable rain on Christmas Day was back in 2001.

The Climate Outlook released late on Monday, December 9, shows Adelaide has a 60 to 70 per cent chance of exceeding the average Christmas temperature.

Interestingly it’s a different story for minimum temperatures, which are slightly more likely to be below average (there’s a 35 to 45 per cent chance of above average minimum temperatures).

The rainfall signal for the week shows a 60 to 70 per cent chance of being below average, so there’s a drier outlook for the week of Christmas than usual in December.

But check back in with us and the Bureau one week before the big day, for the 7-day forecast.

Past five years of Christmas weather in Adelaide, recorded at Kent Town:

2018 37.9C

2017 29.4C

2016 41.3C

2015 37.2C

2014 23.5C