Toowoomba weather: When is the best time to visit the Darling Downs?

The Toowoomba weather is surprisingly mild given the northern, inland Queensland location. But due to lower rainfall, the best time to visit the Darling Downs is between April and September.

Toowoomba in Queensland, a surprisingly large inland city around 127km west of Brisbane, doesn’t tend to feature in too many travel itineraries. But if you’re into gardens and steam trains, it might be worth a detour. Especially if you use it as the gateway to the Darling Downs region on the western side of the Great Dividing Range.

Given how far north and inland it is, it would be a reasonable assumption to think Toowoomba can get fiercely hot. After all, other inland Australian towns such as Coober Pedy, Kalgoorlie, Mildura and Alice Springs can be savagely hot in summer.

Why the Toowoomba weather is relatively mild

You might be pleasantly surprised, however. The Toowoomba weather isn’t quite as ferocious as the location might suggest. This is partly because Toowoomba is clambering up the Great Dividing Range, 600 metres above sea level.

So even in January, the hottest month in Toowoomba, the mean maximum daily temperature doesn’t creep above 30°C. It’s 28.4°C in January, and not too far off that between December and March. You’d still not want to be walking around the Darling Downs Zoo on the really hot days, however.

So if the Toowoomba summer is surprisingly tolerable, what about the Toowoomba winter? Well, the coldest month is July, with a mean maximum temperature of 16.8°C and mean minimum temperature of 6.6°C. That’s light jumper over a T-shirt territory. June and August are pretty similar.

Best time to visit the Darling Downs

Rainfall, however, is the key factor in the Toowoomba weather. It is much higher in the summer months, with an average of 102.5mm in February. According to the Bureau of Meteorology, it doesn’t creep above 36mm between April and September.

For the Toowoomba weather, therefore, April to September is the best time to visit the Darling Downs. But there’s no obviously dreadful time to visit, unlike there can be in other parts of Australia. You can forgive the Toowoomba population for wanting to keep this to themselves.

More places to visit in Queensland

Watch movies at the Yatala Drive In on the Gold Coast.

Browse the Eumundi Markets on the Sunshine Coast.

Go camping at Booloumba Creek in the Conondale National Park.

Chill out at Kewarra Beach in Cairns.

Take the Premier bus service from Brisbane to Noosa.