On the day before the start of winter, the mercury dropped to minus 6.3 degrees at the Canberra airport monitoring station at 7.22am Monday.

The previous low was minus 5.4 degrees, recorded a fortnight ago on Sunday May 16.

A meteorologist at the Bureau of Meteorology said a cold front that went through recently brought really strong southerly air stream that had stayed around for a few days.

Monday was the fourth straight day that temperatures dropped below zero.

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Canberra is expected to have a sunny day through the rest of Monday - Reconciliation Day - heading for a top of 15 degrees.

Another cold start is forecast for Tuesday morning, when the bureau tips we'll drop to minus 3 degrees with patches of frost and fog.

Wednesday is likely to bring an end to this run of minus temperatures, with a forecast low of 1. Although there are still the chance of morning fog and frost.

Maximum temperatures this week are forecast to range from 14 to 16 degrees, and there's a chance of some rain on Thursday and Friday.

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