Weather
Sydney is situated on latitude 34° S and has an average mean temperature ranging from 72 °F (22 °C) in January to 55 °F (13 °C) in July. It’s warm, sunny, but temperate climate has encouraged its citizens to develop a pleasure-loving and easygoing attitude to life and to make full use of the opportunities for sailing, swimming, and surfing at their doors.
The average annual precipitation (all falling as rain) is 47 inches (1,200 mm), spread relatively evenly throughout the year. The greatest amount falls in late autumn and the least in early spring, with short tropical deluges in summer (December–February). Sydney is unbearably hot for only a few days each year, when a westerly wind brings hot dry air from the desert.
Extreme summer heat is tempered from time to time by the arrival of a cold front from the Tasman Sea, heralded by a stiff wind from the south known locally as the “Southerly Buster.” In winter (June–August), however, the westerly wind is cool.
