Bowen Post Office is a weather station located 6 m above sea level, 1 km from Bowen. Its records go back to 1888: 13 years of temperature are available up to 2025, along with rainfall and a comparison with two reference normals. Over the whole series (13 years) the annual mean temperature there is 24.6 °C; the 1961–1990 and 1991–2020 reference periods are not documented well enough for a comparison. The warmest year of the series is 1986 (25.4 °C) and the coldest 1977 (24.2 °C). The last complete year, 2025, ranks 5 out of 13, from warmest to coldest. Over 1961–2025, the annual mean temperature changes by +0.04 °C per decade. The station ranks 220 out of 227 stations, from the fastest rise to the slowest.
Annual mean temperature since 1888
Of the ten warmest years in the series, 1 fall after 1999. The warmest is 1986 (25.4 °C). The ten-year running mean peaks at 24.6 °C (1986) and bottoms out at 24.5 °C (1983).
Annual rainfall since 1888
On average 1016 mm of rain falls per year over the 99 documented years. The wettest year, 1950, received 2015 mm; the driest, 1915, only 216 mm, which is 9.3 times less. Over 1961–1990, January is on average the wettest month (219 mm) and September the driest (12 mm). Between 1967 and 1986, 9 years out of 20 exceeded the series average.
Records at Bowen Post Office
- Warmest year: 25.4 °C, in 1986
- Coldest year: 24.2 °C, in 1977
- Driest year: 216 mm, in 1915
- Wettest year: 2015 mm, in 1950
- Warmest month: 29.7 °C, in January 1987
- Coldest month: 18.3 °C, in June 1982
- Wettest month: 1183 mm, in January 1918
- Hottest day: 39.7 °C, on 1 January 1985
- Coldest day: 5.5 °C, on 18 June 1976
- Heaviest rain in one day: 391.9 mm, on 23 January 1929
1.2 °C separate the warmest year of the series from the coldest. Between the hottest and the coldest day on record, the range reaches 34.2 °C.
Temperature trend over 1961–2025
The regression line of annual mean temperature changes by +0.04 °C per decade between 1961 and 2025, about +0.3 °C over the whole period. That is slower than the median of the 227 stations (+0.19 °C per decade), by 0.15 °C per decade: the station ranks 220 out of 227.
Data source and licence
Data source: Bureau of Meteorology (ACORN-SAT) and NOAA NCEI (GHCN-Daily) (dataset “ACORN-SAT v2 daily (homogenised) + GHCN-Daily”), licence CC BY 4.0; Public domain (NOAA NCEI). Last updated: 29 October 2026.
The data for Bowen Post Office are shown as the source publishes them; this site does not correct them. A year is kept only if at least eleven months of measurements are available, and a normal is computed only with at least twenty years of data out of its thirty. Temperatures are rounded to 0.1 °C and rainfall to the millimetre. The station is one of 227 stations in Australia: the overview page lets you compare them.
Frequently asked questions
What is the annual mean temperature at Bowen Post Office?
Over the whole series (13 years), the annual mean temperature at Bowen Post Office is 24.6 °C.
What is the warmest year ever measured at Bowen Post Office?
Since records began in 1888, the warmest year at Bowen Post Office is 1986, at 25.4 °C on average. The coldest is 1977 (24.2 °C).
Is the climate at Bowen Post Office getting warmer?
The rise is not clear at Bowen Post Office: the trend is +0.04 °C per decade between 1961 and 2025, +0.3 °C in total over the period.
Towns near this station
Neighbouring stations