The outdoor pool closed on Monday, but with the weather expected to hit the high 20s this weekend, it was decided at 5pm on Wednesday night to reopen the pool to the public until March 26.

Aquazone service manager Ray Smith said that as soon as he was told of the decision he went to work getting the pool ready for Warrnambool’s swim squad to be back in the outdoor pool first thing on Thursday morning.

“You have to bring all the chemical levels back up, turn the pumps back on and get the heating back up. That takes quite a few hours to do,” he said. “The squads were in there this morning and they were very happy.”

Mr Smith said that the feedback from patrons along with the warmer-than-usual weather was behind the decision.

“It’s been warmer later in the year, so it’s more conducive to swimming whereas previous years it’s been a lot cooler,” he said. “It’s Warrnambool weather, you never know with this place.

“We’ve got a fairly warm weekend this weekend and then it starts to peter off later in the week, and the  weekend after that is a bit cooler.”

The mercury is set to reach 28 degrees on Saturday and 29 on Sunday before dropping to the low 20s next week.

It has been a warm start to autumn with the average temperature so far hitting 26.7 degrees, almost two degrees above the long-term average for March. March’s average so far is also hotter than February’s average of 24 degrees, January’s of 24.1 and December’s 22.6. 

However, while March’s hottest day was 34.8, January’s hottest day was 38.3 and February’s was 37.6.