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Has the climate in Townsville changed?

Townsville has warmed about 1.7°F since 1971.

About 0.3°F per decade, measured from Townsville's official daily weather records, 1971–2025. Individual years still bounce around — some recent ones came in cool — but the long-term line has clearly risen.

Is that a lot? Townsville's warming is broadly in line with other cities in Australia — neither unusually fast nor unusually slow.

What has actually changed

Each card compares the 1970s (the first ten years of the record) with recent years (the last ten) — the same span the headline and the chart use.

Freezing nights
about the same
1970s
0 / yr
Recent
0 / yr
Winters about as cold as before
Average temperature
+0.9°F
1970s
75.5°F
Recent
76.5°F
A steady upward drift
Hot days above 90°F
19 more days
1970s
51 / yr
Recent
70 / yr
More days of serious heat
Rainy days
about the same
1970s
95 / yr
Recent
94 / yr
Rainfall pattern about the same

Townsville's temperature, year by year

Average temperature for each year from 1971 to 2025.

73°75°77°79°1971: 76.1°F1972: 74.8°F1973: 76.7°F1974: 74.6°F1975: 75.3°F1976: 75.1°F1977: 74.3°F1978: 75.1°F1979: 75.5°F1980: 75.7°F1981: 75.2°F1982: 74.0°F1983: 76.1°F1984: 75.0°F1985: 75.5°F1986: 76.9°F1987: 77.0°F1988: 76.9°F1989: 75.2°F1990: 75.3°F1991: 75.2°F1992: 76.3°F1993: 75.7°F1994: 75.6°F1995: 76.3°F1996: 76.2°F1997: 75.0°F1998: 76.8°F1999: 75.2°F2000: 74.6°F2001: 76.4°F2002: 76.9°F2003: 77.4°F2004: 76.7°F2005: 76.9°F2006: 75.5°F2007: 75.4°F2008: 75.5°F2009: 75.9°F2010: 76.6°F2011: 74.7°F2012: 75.2°F2013: 76.6°F2014: 75.9°F2015: 77.2°F2016: 78.0°F2017: 76.8°F2018: 76.4°F2019: 76.0°F2020: 76.9°F2021: 76.9°F2022: 77.0°F2023: 76.6°F2024: 77.0°F2025: 77.5°Flong-term trend1971198019902000201020202025
a warmer-than-average year a cooler-than-average year

Each bar is one year. Most recent years sit above the older ones. Some recent years still came in cool — warming is a slope, not a straight climb.

In day-to-day terms, that long-term shift shows up as about 14 more days above 90°F compared with the 1970s.

When in the year the change shows up

How much warmer each month is now than in the 1970s. Useful if you garden or care about a particular season — otherwise the headline above already has the answer.

0.0°+0.5°+1.0°+1.5°January: +0.3°F+0.3JFebruary: +0.6°F+0.6FMarch: +0.6°F+0.6MApril: +0.6°F+0.6AMay: +0.1°F+0.1MJune: +1.1°F+1.1JJuly: +0.8°F+0.8JAugust: +0.1°F+0.1ASeptember: +0.6°F+0.6SOctober: +0.3°F+0.3ONovember: +0.2°F+0.2NDecember: +0.7°F+0.7D

June has warmed the most — about 1.1°F. The warming runs across the whole year, not just one season.

Methodology & sources

Temperature — 1991–2020 normals computed from 30 years of daily observations at Townsville Aero, a weather station, about 5 km from the city centre. The underlying daily records come from NOAA's global station network.

How we build these numbers →