Australian Weather

[Styx]

Tasmania has recorded its wettest 3 month period on record, those dried up lakes and rivers are no more. The big dry drove Tasmania close to a state of emergency with hydro electricity reservoirs collapsing to a record low of 12% - they are now 34% - the biggest short-term fillup recorded.

[knocker]

Just in the nick of time Styx.

[Styx]

On 7/27/2016 at 17:01, knocker said:

Just in the nick of time Styx.

Hi knocker. Yes very much - soon we will get the findings of a parliamentary inquiry to see what should be done to prevent this from ever happening again. It has cost the state a lot of money for the diesel generators and the fuel and lost production from big industry, such as smelting and paper mills. The Bass Strait cable got fixed, so if spring and summer is as dry as last year and the reservoir levels drop again to critical ( highly unlikely but you never know with how things are nowadays ) we have some backup. Nature would be loving this return of rain though and recovering really well.

[Styx]

Quiet days across the country...so in the meantime...here's Barn Bluff ( 1559m )...Tasmania's fourth tallest peak, in the central highlands.

 

 

[tropicbreeze]

Great photo. You can see there were strong winds there.

[Styx]

On 8/10/2016 at 16:34, tropicbreeze said:

Great photo. You can see there were strong winds there.

It does look magical. I'm not sure what side of the mountain is shown in the photo but I'm having a guess it's the western face as it's so clearly caked in ice and snow, this is the predominant wind direction. The line which looks like a ridge leading to the base is actually an elevated boardwalk. It takes 4 hours to walk in from the nearest road; most mountain ranges in Tasmania are isolated and rarely visited in wintertime due to the weather. 

The last few weeks have been terrific for snow in Tasmania's highland areas ( SW, central plateau, western ranges, NE highlands ), although it hasn't been notably cold. If you took a plane from Melbourne to Hobart you would see a lot of snow down below.

There is 1 metre of snow at the NE highlands snowfield of Ben Lomond ( 1500m ). This makes it a good season for them. There would be more than that on the ground at that elevation in the central highlands. Much more in drifts of course too. The mountain range behind Hobart ( 1270m ) often fairs less well because of it's sheltered south-east location.

This is Tasmania's snowfields at Ben Lomond in NE Tasmania. From Ben Lomond facebook page.  Looking really good this week!

 

 

 

     

[knocker]

Blair Trewin's epic journey to 112 Australian weather stations

Blair Trewin is a wonderful character and one of the leading researchers of the homogenization community. He works at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) and created their high-quality homogenized datasets. He also developed a correction method for daily temperature observations that is probably the best we currently have. Fitting to his scientific love of homogenization, he has gone on a quest to visit all 112 weather stations that are used to monitor the Australian climate. Enjoy the BOM blog post on this "epic journey".

http://variable-variability.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/blair-trewin-journey-112-australian-weather-stations.html

[tropicbreeze]

Today is officially the last day of winter here and, from the BOM, minimum temperature was 22.7C at 2:48AM while maximum was 35.8C at 2:59PM with 33% RH. At my place this morning just before dawn it was about 24.5C. Although winter coincides with our dry season the wet season doesn't officially start until 1 October.

[Summer Sun]

Cracking sunrise in Sydney on the first day of spring

 

 

Edited August 31, 2016 by Summer Sun

[Styx]

A very wet winter in Australia 

...and staying warmer than average

June +1.3C July +1.0C August +0.4C

[mb018538]

I'd imagine the majority of the rainfall was more than welcome! I know there were some bad floods in places, but the bulk of the country has been dry for so long, this will help a great deal. Before you know it, it'll be back to scorching temps of 40-50c and bushfires!

[mountain shadow]

4 hours ago, mb018538 said:

I'd imagine the majority of the rainfall was more than welcome! I know there were some bad floods in places, but the bulk of the country has been dry for so long, this will help a great deal. Before you know it, it'll be back to scorching temps of 40-50c and bushfires!

Given that parts of Australia have seen bad flooding over the last few years, I've often wondered whether they have good water management in terms of retaining the water for drought periods? Do they have much in the way of dams?

[tropicbreeze]

I think rainfall has been far more patchy than inferred by that chart. At my place the total for the 3 months of winter was 0.2mm, and the nearest BOM weather station was also 0.2mm for the same period. I haven't checked all the other weather stations in the area but many of them probably wouldn't be much different. That's far from the "Very much above average" indicated on the chart. Additionally, many areas have negligible rain during winter, mine included, and even only a very small shower could easily make a substantial increase over the average.

[Styx]

On 9/1/2016 at 21:51, mountain shadow said:

Given that parts of Australia have seen bad flooding over the last few years, I've often wondered whether they have good water management in terms of retaining the water for drought periods? Do they have much in the way of dams?

I would think so. I'm not aware, for instance, of any town or productive region that has been abandoned due to poor management of water resources ( at least in modern times ). All of Australia's major cities and towns have a secure water supply with nearby large scale reservoirs. During the last major national drought, lasting for several years and ending in 2011 with the big flood, there was a big drop in water supply in Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. State governments responded by building de-salinisation plants as a backup and introducing strict water use regulations.

On the outback farms it is not economic to build large scale dams in drier areas away from the coast because of heat and evaporation. Outback ranches rely on bore water pumped from underground rather than dams to feed their cattle. In times of drought cattle numbers are reduced and the big problem is usually lack of feed rather than water. There are a few outback towns ( mainly in NSW and Queensland I think ) that are hundreds of miles apart that take water from the one source ( such as river system that feeds into a major dam ). When a mining company sets up near one town it uses water that may have gone somewhere else and this causes problems so water has to be carted in during times of drought, but these are really isolated incidences.

There have always been grand engineering plans to irrigate large outback regions by diverting water from the tropics into the central regions creating a new population base centered on agriculture.  Apart from the massive cost involved there would be a big problem in attracting a viable population base to a remote area with a summer climate of 40-50C. There would also be the inevitable conservation battle over the damming and diversion of river systems in the tropics and conflict over the use of land for the pipeline, which would cross many jurisdictions and tenures, such as over aboriginal land.

 

 

Edited September 8, 2016 by Styx

[Styx]

On 9/2/2016 at 13:48, tropicbreeze said:

I think rainfall has been far more patchy than inferred by that chart. At my place the total for the 3 months of winter was 0.2mm, and the nearest BOM weather station was also 0.2mm for the same period. I haven't checked all the other weather stations in the area but many of them probably wouldn't be much different. That's far from the "Very much above average" indicated on the chart. Additionally, many areas have negligible rain during winter, mine included, and even only a very small shower could easily make a substantial increase over the average.

Good point. This is a more useful rainfall map from the BOM.

 

[Styx]

Australia is likely to get its first 40C+ day of the season tomorrow, in NW Western Australia. There were a lot of 39s up there today. Hobart got its first 20C+ day of the season today, as usual it was the last capital city to reach that mark. Melbourne and Canberra got there in the last two-three weeks, the other capitals had a number of them in winter, Darwin of course would never go so low.

 

[tropicbreeze]

We're three weeks away from the official start to the wet season. The temperature has been creeping up slowly, between 37C to 38C for the past week to 39C next week. If the rain comes through late next week as suggested it will be most welcome.

[Styx]

The rain keeps on coming. Today, BOM issues a flood warning for three states.

Spring 2014 and 2015 were the warmest seasons on record in Australia with historical heatwaves and early season bushfires. If this months weather pattern continues this season won't go anywhere close to those extremes. This September average maximum temperatures are well repressed across central regions of Australia, Alice Springs down by -2.5C from the long term average, Coober Pedy ( South Australia ) -5.0C, Longreach ( Queensland ) -4.5C, Marble Bar ( Western Australia ) -1.5C.

2min34sec

 

[Styx]

Storms have brought down the electricity network in South Australia leaving the entire state without electricity. Never heard of something like that happening before. Adelaide is in gridlock this evening with no traffic lights, train service, and the airport has been closed. Also appears to be tornado damage in some small outlying towns, with gale force winds persisting into the night. This is an unfolding story as we move into the night here with lots of new information coming thru on the news channels. 

Edited September 28, 2016 by Styx

[Midlands Ice Age]

55 minutes ago, Styx said:

Storms have brought down the electricity network in South Australia leaving the entire state without electricity. Never heard of something like that happening before. Adelaide is in gridlock this evening with no traffic lights, train service, and the airport has been closed. Also appears to be tornado damage in some small outlying towns, with gale force winds persisting into the night. This is an unfolding story as we move into the night here with lots of new information coming thru on the news channels. 

I was going to like your post Styx, but thought better of it.

I hope all are keeping safe!! It souds a massive outbreak, Was it forecast?

Keep us updated if you do not manage much sleep!

MIA

Edited September 28, 2016 by Midlands Ice Age

[Styx]

48 minutes ago, Midlands Ice Age said:

I was going to like your post Styx, but thought better of it.

I hope all are keeping safe!! It souds a massive outbreak, Was it forecast?

Keep us updated if you do not manage much sleep!

MIA

Yep - they did a good job with the forecast. Only the state of South Australia is having problems right now, so I'll be going to bed at a normal time !  Here is the synoptic chart for some reference points,  Adelaide is near the 980mb low prog'd for 10am Thursday, quite a distance away, pressure will be lower tonight. The pre frontal system caused the storms this afternoon but the follow up winds are likely to be violent overnight. The system will weaken and move south-east tomorrow, but still windy with reasonable rain for Tasmania - but probably without the drama. The southern states have been very wet this month the rainfall rankings for the month will be interesting to see. 

Edited September 28, 2016 by Styx

[knocker]

Latest GFS

[Styx]

Confirmation of how wet it was across most of Australia in September! I think it's worth showing the maps. It may have been more of a hindrance than of use to the agriculture sector with lots of  flooding reports from growing regions. South Australia has had a tough time. The Tasmania BOM Office says it has issued more flood warnings for our river systems this year than for any other year in the past - and there is still three months of the year to go. I don't believe they have changed the way those warnings are structured or delivered, they are based on water guage measurements of river heights, but I'm not sure how many years of records they have archived.  It was also the first cooler than average September across Australia since 2005.  So a cool and wet start to Spring overall for Australia.

[Styx]

An awesome amount of snow is still on the ground in the Australian Alps. The official measuring station at Spencers Creek in NSW (  elevation 1830m ), not too far away from the main ski fields, returned a snow depth reading of 170.5cm this week. The graphs are from the Snowy Hydro website, they have been measuring snow since 1954.

It is the deepest snow so late into spring since 1962

It is the first time since 1994 that peak snow depth for the year has occurred in the first week of October

2014 and 2015 had rapid melts because it was so prematurely warm

 

[Styx]

I have just discovered that the information I posted about the amount of snow in the Alps in relation to 1962 is wrong. I really should have double checked that one rather than relying on my memory from another source that I probably misinterpreted, so apologies to everyone. It is the most snow on the ground this close to summer since 1996. It is still a big deal, but no where near as significant as previous 'epic' years, especially in the 50s and 60s.      

Edited October 8, 2016 by Styx