The NSW Southern Tablelands city shivered through the night as temperatures plummeted as low as minus 10 degrees Celsius, with the apparent temperature scale hitting minus 13.1.

And it wasn’t the only place driven to cranking the fire and powering up the heaters.

Much of south eastern Australia was held in winter’s icy grip.

In the Border region, Albury recorded temperatures as low as -2.7 on Saturday and Wodonga -3.5 on Sunday morning but the July record would have to be at Rutherglen with -6.7 on Saturday morning and -6.9 on Sunday morning. Meanwhile Mount Hotham had the honour of being the coldest place in the state on Saturday with a low of -8.2 degrees.

Bathurst froze with the temperature hitting -5.7 at 6am, in NSW’s Hunter Valley Scone hit -3.1 at 7am, on the Northern Tableland’s Glen Innes dropped to -4.8 at 5am, while in the south Bega hit -2.8 at 6am.

In Sydney it was north-western suburb Richmond that hit the lowest temperature of -0.8 at 6:30am.

In the Illawarra Moss Vale dropped to -4.9 at 7:30am, while in the Snowy Mountains it was certainly frosty with Bombala hitting minus 5.7 at 7am, in the Central West Cowra dropped to -4.9.

Heading south and Hay hit -6.3 at 7:30am, Braidwood shivered at -7.2 at 7am, and Canberra dropped to -8 at 6:30am.

In Victoria it was a similar story with Swan Hill dropped to minus four at 7am, Horsham hit -1.2 at 8am, Avalon dropped to -3.6 at 6:30am, while Bendigo dropped to -1.2.

In the West and South Gippsland forecast area at Warragul it dropped to -4.6 at 7:30am, while Omeo in the East dropped to a freezing -6.3 degrees.

The cold persisted in Tasmania where lows of -6.3 were recorded at Butlers Gorge at 7am, Ouse hit -4.8 at 8:30am, while Fingal hit -5.3 at 8am.

The bigger cities were warmer with Hobart recording a low of 1.2 degrees at 6:30am and Launceston dropping to just 2.4 at 7:30am.