Drizzling here now. Low cloud base too.

As for the coming week - an early April heatwave looks like it might undo the good work of the past 24 hours before a large cutoff low or inland trough comes in from the West... Messy.

14mm here so far. Best one day total in the gauge here since Dec 4, 2013.

Rain has eased and the main rain-band seems to have passed, so not sure if we'll get much more.

Hmmm, 18Z GFS says we'll only get 10mm now....

BOM are only going for 15mm here in Bendigo. I'm hoping for 25mm+ given the state of our garden/desert. EC thinks as much. Would love to have a repeat of March 5, 2010 (the day before Melbourne's monster hailstorm) when a repeatedly back-building rainband dumped 160mm in parts of town in one day! Wo...

Monsoonal like cloud mass along the QLD-NSW coast today. It certainly made its mark on the Illawarra Escarpment - 297mm at one location (24 hrs to 9am).

Unfortunately it seems to be positioned a little too much to the East for my liking....

Those rain bands in NSW seem to be heading this way? Tomorrows forecast 24c & mostly Sunny for Melbourne? Are they going to slide east and completely miss central areas? Parts of Sydney are certainly copping it today. i.e 57mm in Bankstownn since 12:30pm, a 40 kt Westerly gale at Sydney Airport :o

Still not much convergence in each forecast model run. EC starting to stabilize a little (60mm for here would be sensational!), but GFS now throwing in a major downgrade - last 5 model runs had 30mm, 25mm, 20mm, 30mm, now 4mm :? I think it will largely come down to the positioning and depth of the t...

Just a few spots of rain in Bendigo today. Got to 30c at lunchtime, a fair bit cooler now.

Next week is anybody's guess. EC keeps wildly jumping around with each model run - this morning it said <10mm for next week, now it says 50mm. No convergence in the forecasts at all.

Latest EC and GFS are really ramping up the rainfall totals for the middle of next week. Looks like several days of tropical moisture pumping in from the North-east. We could cop bucket-loads or next-to-nothing....

Looks like winds will be too Westerly for much of the metro area to cop any more than 10mm IMO.

On the other hand it looks like the next system on March 21-22 could have quite a deep and cold southerly fetch. (And then the Tasmanian rain shadow effect could be a factor)

Had a good laugh at latest EC forecast tonight: Widespread heavy rains (30mm+) for the weekend of March 22-23.

So..... what are the chances we'll get more than 10% of what it's currently forecasting for that weekend?

Lots of parallels so far between this year so far and early 2013 - Mid-January heatwave, continuing on into Feb (esp inland), early March heat, and then a strong cold front in the middle weekend of March. Perhaps parts of Melbourne might do OK out a bay effect on Sunday since water temps are around ...

We've really been unlucky with the positioning of the MJO in relation to the upper ridge placement this summer. And when the upper ridge broke down with a favorable trough in its place, the MJO nicked off to phase 7 (near Intl Date Line) :( Otherwise I suspect late Feb could've been very wet. Anyway...

Yep, ridiculously benign weather really....

On the climate front, latest POAMA output has swung towards a strong El Nino developing this year.

Last night was very hit-or-miss North of the Divide. Bendigo itself largely got nothing (again), but some surrounding towns got a downpour. Interesting to see Lalbert cop 36mm, and Kerang 27mm. Might have to wait until Tuesday-Wednesday next week for another chance. At least the temperatures aren't ...

Some red echoes North of Bendigo atm.

And here are two webcams to watch the action (they look West and North):
http://www.newbendigohospital.org.au/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

(Some nice looking anvils in the distance!)

EC keeps chopping and changing. Looks good for some decent falls on Tuesday/Wednesday and a bit for Northern VIC this weekend too.

Belting down in Bayswater. So good!

Incidentally, 00Z GFS looks interesting for Tuesday next week with LIs around -4 or so and 25mm+ across North Central Vic. One to watch.

This is basically 1980/1981 all over again Very much so. Still remember that summer even though I was kid. What was even more memorable was the cold and spectacularly snowy winter that followed it. This included the monumental low-level snow outbreak in Northern Vic on June 23 and a >3 metre ski se...

Today's wind set off some aggressive grass fires - the one at Malmsbury was fortunately stopped in good time.

Sunday looks like it could be a bit nasty.