The mercury was originally believed to have plummeted to minus 7.1 degrees at the Bureau of Meteorology’s Dubbo Airport automatic weather station.

However the bureau’s quality control processes flagged that reading as unusual, and a manual check confirmed the mercury fell to just minus six degrees.

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It’s the coldest temperature recorded at the Dubbo Airport AWS, but not the coldest recorded in Dubbo.

The record, minus 6.7 degrees, was set at the old Darling Street station on July 27, 1940.

“We’ve had a high pressure ridge over the area for a couple of days in a row and that leads to clear skies and light winds,” duty forecaster Katarina Kovacevic said.

“When those two things couple up, that’s when we get our coldest mornings.

“More broadly, it has been fairly dry through the Central West, so low relative humidity so that also helps with cooling overnight and leads to colder temperatures.”

Ms Kovacevic said overnight temperatures would improve throughout the week, with a low of five degrees on Friday morning following a 21 degree day on Thursday.

But the cold air is set to return this weekend, with overnight minimums back in the negative. Saturday is forecast to see a maximum of 15 degrees, with 16 degrees predicted on Sunday.

The dry weather is set to continue.

“The only day that has rain on the forecast currently is Friday ... but we’re not expecting large rainfall amounts,” Ms Kovacevic said.

“It will probably be pretty patchy, pretty hit and miss as well so no good news at this stage.”

Dubbo has experienced six below-zero nights so far in July, and eight altogether in 2018.

That puts the city on track to beat the July average of 7.2 nights at or below zero degrees, after a warmer than average June (one night at or below zero degrees, compared to a long-term average of 7.5 nights).

Dubbo is not the only town to see discrepancies in recorded temperatures.

Minus 8.6 degrees was declared a new record at Tamworth on Sunday, however the Latest Observations page on the Bureau’s website recorded a minimum of just minus 4.2.

The Latest Observations page is updated automatically at least every half an hour, while the Daily Observations page summarises maximum and minimum temperature and rainfall (among other measures) daily. Both can be adjusted after quality controls have been put in place.