The climate classification for Perth, Australia, is Csa, a hot-summer Mediterranean climate. Its defining pattern is hot, mostly dry summers followed by mild, much wetter winters.
Perth’s seasonal rhythm is shaped by its location on Australia’s southwest coast. From December through March, subtropical high pressure and clear skies produce abundant sunshine and low humidity. In winter, cold fronts moving across the Southern Ocean bring most of the city’s rainfall; 77.7% of Perth’s rain falls between May and September.
The classification’s “s” denotes a dry summer, while “a” indicates a hot summer. February is generally the hottest month, and temperatures above 35 °C occur on average 26 days each year. A famous local feature is the Fremantle Doctor, a sea breeze that usually arrives on summer afternoons from the southwest and can quickly lower temperatures.
Perth is sometimes confused with Csb, the warm-summer Mediterranean category, or Cfb, the temperate oceanic category. Its consistently hot summer temperatures and sharply seasonal rainfall place it in Csa. Perth is also known as Australia’s sunniest capital, averaging about 3,200 hours of sunshine annually.