Clearer skies ahead for Queensland as sunshine returns after wet autumn

Australia Broadcast Center

18-05-2025

Clearer skies are forecast for Queensland as the sunshine starts to return after a wet autumn.
The weather bureau predicts scattered showers for the south-east on Monday and Tuesday, before sunny conditions take over for the rest of the week into next weekend.
"It really is a fairly benign week of weather across much of Queensland," senior meteorologist Harry Clark said.
While northern and inland parts of the state can expect sunshine all week, Brisbane, the Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast and Toowoomba are forecast to receive occasional showers throughout Monday.
"It's certainly not a complete dry change just yet on the horizon," Mr Clark said.
"For that, we'll probably need to look more towards the weekend or early next week."
Forecast maximum temperatures are 25 degrees in Brisbane, 23 on the Gold and Sunshine coasts, 28 in Cairns, and 25 in Mackay and Rockhampton.
"The most notable thing will be the cool mornings," Mr Clark said.
"We have fairly moderate southerly [air] flow that's established itself.
"That's going to start to pump some cooler air into the interior of Queensland, leading to those morning temperatures really starting to drop off as we head towards winter.
"We could even see the first frost of the season around the Carnarvon [Ranges] on Tuesday morning.
"It's going to be very isolated and patchy if it does occur, but certainly it's a sign that winter is on the way."
The bureau said some parts of south-east Queensland had already exceeded their annual average rainfall, less than five months into 2025.
Coolangatta has had 1,533 millimetres so far this year, more than the annual average of 1,517.
It is a similar story on the Sunshine Coast.
"Nambour so far this year has had 1,676 millimetres — the average for January to May is 1,063mm and the annual average is 1,628mm," Mr Clark said.
"That really speaks volumes to how persistently wet it has been across most of Queensland.
"Rainfall naturally decreases as we head to those [winter] months as it's really dominated by drier westerly winds."
Mr Clark said the climate outlook for the next three months was "a fairly neutral signal", meaning a likely return to drier conditions.