Discussion: Hobart

Will it really be 38 there today (Sat)?

It was, and more - 38.8 in the city, 39.4 at the airport, 0.7 short of the Tasmanian record for February.

It was quite unseasonably hot at Scotts Peak Dam I noticed. Not the weather usually associated with the SW.

my temp gauge said 34.8 in kingston, felt very hottt :o currently 26.2 and it's midnight!

The southwest can get pretty hot under the right conditions (at low elevations, anyway) as a strong northerly has a fair bit of land to pass over. The area that never gets really hot is the north coast - Devonport's record high is in the 31s, and Low Head has never reached 30 in ~120 years of data. This is because northerlies are coming directly off the water, and winds from other directions aren't hot enough in the first place.

(Something I've occasionally mused about is that Devonport probably had warmer summers at the peak of the Ice Ages than it does now, because being a couple of hundred kilometres inland would make up for overall temperatures being 6-8 degrees lower).