A thread to keep us occupied while we wait for some proper weather. Looks like a week or more of typical autumn weather dominated by highs, with the occasional weak front. Hard to see more than a mm or two with most fronts in the south, with showers more likely around Friday arvo, Sunday arvo/Monday morning, Friday and the following Sunday.
All the serious weather action is elsewhere, with lots of wind and rain in Queensland, record heat in NW Australia, and plenty of showers running through Tasmania.
Seems like people are over this rainfree, stormfree sunny weather
Three mild to warm days up here. Another’s ten to come. Some warmer and some less warm.
Minimal rain showing up between now and mid April, but maybe that will change Odd shower in south today and chance again around Friday. Could well see record warmth in about 7 days with the 850Ts progged to make a run at the mid teens
Progs trying to produce something around the middle of the month.
A bit off topic but, just saw this when checking the radar:
"The Bureau of Meteorology is refurbishing key components of the Laverton Radar in early April, to complete a mid-life upgrade that will extend the life of the radar by another 10 years. For current weather and three-hour forecasts go to MetEye. The nearby Broadmeadows Radar will be available and should be used in combination with the Bureau's Satellite Viewer cloud and lightning images. We expect to have the radar back on line mid-April."
Indeed TD! We ended up with 35mm for March; 103.5mm ytd vs 147.2mm average. Pretty dry, though not ridiculously so (yet)!
Really surprised we haven't turned the corner with rain yet. Two favourable BOM 3 month outlooks in a row now for average April rain, and some hope for a negative IOD ahead (and no sign of the dreaded positive IOD).
(And yes, read that depressing information about the Laverton radar - I wonder what that endless, way-over-completion-date upgrade last year was??? I don't like bureaucratic spin and being taken for an idiot by BOM. If there's been a stuff-up, say so.)
It’s a good thing we had a decent fall of rain 9 days ago, as we seem to be stuck in another long dry stretch with blocking patterns continuing. At least it’s not mid-summer with raging heat, even if temperatures are above average. Got to 20c here today and 0.5mm of rain.
Picked up 2mm here yesterday. Says a lot when that is the wettest day in a week in April (once nearly our wettest month of the year ). Fog here this morning and trying to drizzle.
Can’t see an end to this pattern yet, and EC has temps rising into the low to mid 30s next week. Could see late season records if that comes off. Hasn’t got much coverage but the airmass over northwest Australia has repeatedly broken late season Australian records, so if that dives south won’t struggle to spike
Yep, another tumble weed thread again.... incredible strength in Autumn ridges these days, the Hadley cell a lot further south than it used to be in March and April. This time last year I had 78mm Year to date , so the (edit) 139mm so far this year is still looking pretty good
The patterns sure seem abnormal, with a doldrums-like setup for much of the last couple of months. It's a little scary in terms of the future, with these kinds of setups expected to become normal over time. Unfortunately, looks like April may be the same as February and March for the most part, but I really hope not and that a shift occurs around the middle of the month.
That said, we too are not doing too badly for YTD rain. Thanks to a couple of intense downpours, we're currently sitting on 136mm YTD, compared to the average of 147mm.
Squeezed out 0.4mm of mizzle this morning, sending my MTD to a lofty 2.8mm.
Still nothing convincing in the progs. There is a bit of a switch with a trough sneaking through over the weekend and a second front on Tuesday or Wednesday. This second system looks like preventing the record heat from diving south (maybe). GFS, ACCESS and EC got a bit on that front, but nothing to get excited about at this stage.
Hard to believe that autumn used to be a time with proper fronts and cutoffs.
First time in ages I've seen decent rain on any short-term model. A sniff of hope?... or, 'tell'im he's dreamin!' It'll be interesting to see Water & Land tomorrow morning.
Morning fog and mizzle and afternoon smoke haze here for the third day in a row. Would be beaut autumn weather if only it would rain occasionally
Almost excited by the progs tonight. Pretty consistent two part system, first on Wednesday and Thursday followed by something on the weekend. Latest EC got 20mm here with each bit. Been ages since we managed two events in a week, so believe when I see it
Between then and now, more dry and becoming unusually warm inland. Some spots could well see their most significant April war event on record (for example Bathurst in NSW could well see more 30s this month than every previous April put together ). Gotta be lots of similar odd records out there.
Sneaky little front pushing up ahead of the next incoming high. Could well see the odd shower today.
We might also see the odd shower late Sunday into Monday as a weak trough approaches. Tuesday looks crazy warm. Lots of sites in Victoria and NSW will approach their April record high. Quite a few spots showing temps near 38C north of the divide
Proper system still showing up around Wednesday or Thursday then a second one for the following weekend. Details still a bit unclear with a couple of models putting it through as a westerly system and a couple putting it through as an easterly one
The 22mm of rain predicted by EC this time next week would be nice. I wouldn't bet on it though.
Looking at some previous April temp records: 34.8c is our highest max temp (pre-1991), along with 33.7c on April 14, 2004 and again on April 10, 2005 at the current site (since 1991). OCF reckons 33.3c on Tuesday, BOM are going for 35c.