The skies are putting on typical summer weather for the first day of the season today, with a maximum of 31 degrees and a small chance of less than two millimetres of rain in the afternoon or evening. 

Weatherzone meteorologist Rob Sharpe said while temperatures would dip to a cooler 21 degrees on Wednesday and 22 on Thursday, Orange’s outlook for the next three months was expected to mirror most of the conditions seen throughout spring.

Orange, like the rest of Australia, saw the hottest October on record this spring, with an average low of eight and top of 22, with November also recording temperatures one degree above average, with a low of nine and top of 23 and September was on average, with a low of two and top of 14.

Spring was also drier than usual, with below-average rainfall recorded for all three months.

September recorded just 17 millimetres of rain, 60mm less than average, while October saw 30mm of rain, as opposed to the average of 77mm, and November was a little wetter with 77mm recorded, 9mm less than average.

“[Summer] could tend to be hotter and drier than average, like spring, but there are a few things complicating the predictions,” Mr Sharpe said.

“There is an El Nino coming, but it’s not nearly as easy as that. There are warmer-than-usual surface sea temperatures around the entire continent, particularly in the Indian Ocean, which means we could see some reasonably good rainfall over the summer.”

While the future is hard to predict, Mr Sharpe said after Wednesday and Thursday’s cool relief, temperatures will begin to rise on Friday to 25, while Saturday and Sunday will see a top of 29 and the mercury will hover around the same temperature until Wednesday next week when a storm system comes through, bringing with it some rain.