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Weather extremes

How extreme does Cairns's weather get?

The hottest, coldest, wettest and snowiest days Cairns has recorded — the outer limits of what its weather can do, and how far they sit beyond a normal day.

Based on 34 years of daily weather observations (1991–present), from the Cairns Intl station 4 km away. Updated through August 2025 — an all-time extreme only changes when a more extreme day actually occurs, so some dates are old. That is normal, not stale data.

The four kinds of extreme

The hottest, coldest, wettest and snowiest single days Cairns has recorded — each shown against what a normal day that time of year looks like.

🔥 Hottest day
109°F Nov 26, 2018

That is about 21°F hotter than a normal November afternoon in Cairns (typical high near 88°F).

The three most extreme on record

1 109°F Nov 26, 2018
2 108°F Nov 27, 2018
3 105°F Nov 28, 2018
❄️ Coldest night
46°F Jul 29, 2001

About 16°F colder than a normal July night in Cairns (typical low near 62°F).

The three most extreme on record

1 46°F Jul 29, 2001
2 47°F Jul 30, 2001
3 47°F Aug 7, 1995
🌧️ Most rain in one day
13.62 in Jan 30, 1994

About 87% of a typical January's rain in a single day (Cairns averages roughly 15.7 in across the month).

The three most extreme on record

1 13.62 in Jan 30, 1994
2 10.94 in Jan 11, 2009
3 10.90 in Jan 26, 2019

How hot and cold it gets, month by month

The shaded band is the normal range of daily temperatures for each month. The dots show the most extreme it has ever been — so you can see how far beyond a normal day the records really sit.

30°50°70°90°110°130° all-time high 109°F JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
normal range of daily temperatureshottest ever recordedcoldest ever recorded

Cairns's record heat sits well above even a hot day for the season — November's 109°F is about 21°F beyond a normal hot afternoon. Its record cold is just as far below a normal winter night — the dots mark how rare each extreme really is.

In plain terms

In a normal year, Cairns's warmest days reach the high 80s°F and its coldest nights drop to the low 60s°F. But across the record it has gone as high as 109°F and as low as 46°F. A single day has delivered over 14 inches of rain. Those are the outer edges worth knowing if you are moving here, planning a trip, or thinking about a house.
Methodology & sources

Temperature & precipitation — 1991–2020 normals computed from 19 years of daily observations at Cairns Post Office, a weather station, about 2 km from the city centre. The underlying daily records come from NOAA's global station network.

How we build these numbers →