What climate zones are in Australia?

Australia has six broad climate zones according to the Bureau of Meteorology: tropical, subtropical, grassland, desert, temperate, and equatorial. These range from the equatorial rainforests of Cape York Peninsula in the far north to the cool temperate climate of Tasmania and the alpine zone of the Australian Alps.

The far north of Australia, including the Top End of the Northern Territory, Cape York Peninsula, and the Kimberley, has a tropical or equatorial climate with two seasons: a wet season (the Wet) from November to April with monsoon rains, and a dry season (the Dry) from May to October. Rainfall in the Wet can exceed 1,500 millimetres a year and tropical cyclones strike the coast.

The interior is desert and grassland, hot and dry year-round, while the subtropical east coast from Brisbane south to about Coffs Harbour has hot wet summers and mild dry winters. The temperate south, including Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Hobart, and most of the populated coastline, has four mild seasons with summer maximums typically in the high 20s and winter minimums around freezing in inland areas.

Perth and the south-west of Western Australia have a Mediterranean climate (hot dry summer, cool wet winter) shaped by the Indian Ocean. The Australian Alps in southern New South Wales, the ACT, and Victoria have an alpine climate with regular snowfall in winter, making it the only part of mainland Australia where Australians ski. Climate change is already shifting these zones, with the Bureau of Meteorology recording the warmest decade on record from 2014 to 2023 and the average Australian temperature rising 1.5 degrees Celsius since 1910.