CANBERRA, Aug. 1 (Xinhua) -- Australia in July may be synonymous with winter, but the nation's Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) on Tuesday confirmed that the country's Northern Territory just sweltered through its hottest July on record.
According to the BoM's Greg Browning, the Northern Territory has its warmest July since temperatures were first recorded more than 100 years ago, with the territory's capital city Darwin experiencing just six 'overnight lows' under 20 degrees Celsius.
He said Darwin normally averages more than 18 nights with a low of below 20 degrees Celsius in July, adding that the mean maximum temperature of the city was 2 degrees Celsius above the average - but was even warmer in the other parts of the territory.
"Places like Alice Springs and Yulara, are seeing anything between 3 degrees Celsius and 4.5 degrees Celsius above the long-term average, so well and truly warmer than anything they've ever seen before," Browning told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Tuesday.
"We've seen well above average from the far north coast of the Territory right down to the South Australian border and everywhere in between."
He added that the Northern Territory has been experiencing above-average temperatures for the last six months, even though the effects of El Nino wore off last year.
"We aren't experiencing that post El Nino warmth this year - it's just a neutral climate state at the moment and we're still seeing these very warm temperatures," Browning said.
"It's hard to say whether this is the new normal or whether this is just an aberration."
Browning said that Australia as a whole was also likely to record more 'record highs' in 2017, something he said was due to global warming.
"It's basically this background warming signal that we're seeing right across the globe associated with global warming," he said.
