As the sun sets and dusk lingers from 4.54pm on Thursday, it will mark the shortest day of the year.
At 12.57am on June 22 the tilt of the earth sat at 23.4 degrees causing the southern hemisphere to face directly away from the sun, resulting in the winter solstice.
While it marked the longest night and the shortest day of sunshine hours in the calendar year, cooler temperatures will remain into August.
But the good news is, the days will now start getting longer as we head towards spring.
"We've still got cool, wintry weather ahead for the next few months but it does mean slowly but surely the days will be getting longer from here, until the summer solstice which occurs in late December," senior meteorologist at the BOM, Andrew Hines said.
He said while the solstice doesn't directly affect the temperature, it still plays a role.
"The temperature is very driven by how much sunshine and sunlight and warmth from the sun places get over the course of the day or week, so there's definitely an effect on temperatures and the days are overall cooler," he said.
The days leading into the winter solstice this year were some of the chilliest for Newcastle, with a minimum of 2.5 degrees recorded at Williamtown weather station, on Wednesday morning, June 21.
"While increased cloud cover and a gradual shift to a slightly more mild northerly generally increased temperatures a couple degrees across the state, Newcastle experienced another chilling morning on Thursday (June 22) of 2.7 degrees," Mr Hines said.
He said the forecast heading into the weekend was looking to be a wet start on Friday trending back to fine conditions in the afternoon and evening.
"Although is could be breezy tomorrow afternoon with a northwesterly wind potentially gusting 25 to 40 kilometres an hour through the course of the middle of the day."
Mostly sunny conditions are expected for Saturday and Sunday as clear temperatures climb between 20 and 23 in Newcastle.
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