Launceston Bureau of Meteorology office manager Brendan McMahon said the remote location's minus 12.2 degrees at 6.41am yesterday was 1 degree colder than its previous  lowest temperature.

``Liawenee got to minus 11.2 a couple of weeks ago, on June 23,'' Mr McMahon said.

That equalled the record low temperature of July 23, 2011.

Liawenee was the coldest place in Australia yesterday, but on June 30, 1983, the mercury dropped to minus 13 degrees at three nearby locations.

``As far as the records go, the minus 13 at Butlers Gorge, Shannon and Tarraleah is the lowest we know of [for Tasmania].''

At Fingal yesterday the temperature dropped to minus 5.9 degrees, just over 3 degrees warmer than the record cold of minus 9 set on June 29, 1994.

Launceston's chilly minus 3.1 at 8am yesterday was a couple of degrees off the record of minus 5.2 experienced on July 23, 1991, and June 30, 1983.

Devonport's 0.8 degrees was a lot warmer than the minus 3.9 recorded on September 29, 1959, and at Scottsdale, yesterday's low of  zero degrees was positively balmy compared with the minus 4.7 recorded on August 6, 1974.

Even at sunny St Helens the mercury dipped into negative territory with minus 0.5 at 7.30am yesterday, not too far from the record cold of minus 1 degree set on  August 16, 2004.

 The good news from Mr McMahon was that it wouldn't be quite so cold today.