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VIC: Classic dry autumn start March 1st to 17th 2018

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JasmineStorm
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VIC: Classic dry autumn start March 1st to 17th 2018

Post by JasmineStorm »

Thought I would slip in a thread to keep up our weather morale. Another dry February and now its continuing into March. I had 5mm for Feb to give me 108mm for the year. This time last year I was 52mm, so it’s not all bad :) The Hadley cell is still a long way south, so fronts are struggling.

This is one to keep an eye on - Mother Nature is starting to play her joker up north ;)

http://www.theaustralianweatherforum.co ... 95#p104495
Last edited by JasmineStorm on Wed Mar 14, 2018 10:34 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Classic autumn start March 1st to.....

Post by Gordon »

Hoping that comes off JS! Meanwhile, another classically autumnal misty morning here. Lovely weather - just missing some decent rain.

This must be one of our longest Feb - March runs without a 30C day; last one was on 7 Feb!
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Re: Classic autumn start March 1st to.....

Post by JasmineStorm »

My 2 cents worth on the latest synoptics. The Hadley cell is a long way south which also happened in early March this time last year. This looks like a big set up for an Indian summer extending well into March as the westerly conveyor belt stays well to the south. Along with this, there is evidence of a cross equatorial flow commencing from the northern hemisphere tropics. Even though the MJO is not in our neck of the woods, the monsoon gyre could become lively around the Australian tropics IMO. Like last year, this could spawn a major tropical cyclone off Queensland. Cyclone Debbie was late March 2017 and successfully weakened the high pressure ridge for southern Australia.

For now, keep watering and keep an eye on the tropics above ;)
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Re: Classic autumn start March 1st to.....

Post by hillybilly »

Every day I look at the progs thinking surely at day ten they will show something and still nothing :roll: Been five weeks now since any effective rain for most of Vic. Will continue for at least another week and maybe more than that. We are starting to get dangerously dry now across most areas with with various indices showing fully cured fuels meaning that any wind and warmth will see fire dangers spike.

Progs offering maybe a mm or two Sunday and Monday, then a warm to hot extended dry spell under a big blocking high. The pressures start to get silly by late next week nudging 1030hPa :(
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Re: Classic autumn start March 1st to.....

Post by stevco123 »

Massive change in conditions here since my last boast on here about everything being green.

Grass is now rapidly dying, gum trees are shedding their leaves and the bloody corellas are demolishing everything else
https://www.weatherlink.com/bulletin/53 ... 76dd68e8bc: for current weather updated every 2 minutes
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Re: Classic autumn start March 1st to.....

Post by hillybilly »

EC and CMC showing a possible pattern change next weekend. Big big high anchored south of Perth. Rain totals aren't that exciting, but a shift in the highs from over us to southwest of Perth should put us in a more favorable location for weather. Meanwhile, a week of watering the garden to keep it limping along. Hopefully a touch of drizzle Sunday and Monday AM for southern areas.
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Re: Classic autumn start March 1st to.....

Post by StratoBendigo »

All looks very dry here for a long time to come. Decent drop in temp on 11th March if EC is correct.
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Re: Classic autumn start March 1st to.....

Post by hillybilly »

0.2mm here from a light shower this morning. Will put about 10 litres in the water tank :(

Looks like a shower possible tomorrow then the long dry rolls on. Having to water the tree I’ve planted the last few years, which is something I have had to do for a few years. Am so over this weather now :?

Next chance for rain about Saturday or Sunday. Progs got a little excited about that system yesterday, but look to be backing off again.
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Re: Classic autumn start March 1st to.....

Post by snowfall »

No rain here unfortunately. A mild day though with a max of 20.7c. Am really over this dry weather too. The landscape here is looking parched now. There’s still the odd bit of green along roadsides and under trees, but many fields and hills now have that greyish look. I know a lot can change over the course of a month but I fear March could end up being a repeat of February. Hope that doesn’t happen, and the signs of possible change that Jasmine highlighted bear some fruit.
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Re: Classic autumn start March 1st to.....

Post by jimmyay »

Love warm sunny settled weather but these dry changes - especially yesterday’s which was a sunny dry change, merely a cool wind change with no rain at all- have become quite a pattern of late. Lots of watering of the garden needed this week and the nature strip trees will be getting watered too as they look quite sad.
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Re: Classic autumn start March 1st to.....

Post by JasmineStorm »

Pattern is very locked into an Indian summer, the high pressure system next week looks even stronger at this stage. Tropics are now starting to move but it's going to take a major tropical cyclone or multiple TC's to help break down this ridge. GFS starting to hint this in a couple of weeks but Victoria is going to be a very large dust bowl by then.
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Re: Classic autumn start March 1st to.....

Post by Sean »

You know it's dry when weeds are dying...

This week looks amazing in terms of beautiful weather, but damn it's going to be dry. I'd hate to be a plant right now.

So boring. Yawn.
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Re: Classic autumn start March 1st to.....

Post by hillybilly »

0.4mm here in the end yesterday. Now we return to a long rainfree warm spell. Plants here are getting hammered. Went for a walk yesterday in our national park and the understory including ferns are in bad shape. Will be a lot of die back soon.

No decent rain in the outlook. Front for Sunday looks almost dry.

Maybe a proper front about this time next week, but too far out to attach much confidence.

For the stats minded here’s the lowest Feb/Mar sequences for Melbourne. 1923 must have been awful :o

1870 9.5
1965 14.5
1967 17.9
1923 23.9 (followed by 0 in April)
1997 24.6

Currently on 2.8 for 2018.
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Re: Classic autumn start March 1st to.....

Post by flyfisher »

What is the trigger for drought declaration? Probably not long enough given the good December we had. I would expect the Vic gov to turn on the desalination plant like they did last year soon.
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Re: Classic autumn start March 1st to.....

Post by Australis(Shell3155) »

http://www.australian-news-today.com/20 ... -two-days/
Pulled off Facebook, so is this our trigger for our relief ?
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Re: Classic autumn start March 1st to.....

Post by hillybilly »

What is the trigger for drought declaration? Probably not long enough given the good December we had. I would expect the Vic gov to turn on the desalination plant like they did last year soon.
This event is what is called flash drought which is an intense rapid onset event. It doesn’t currently meet the typical definition for a drought which is longer term. They are getting worse because higher temperatures increase evaporation while weather systems are also getting more sluggish so rainfall reliability is declining (particularly in the subtropics).

The dams are falling fast atm, but still above 60%.

Still no proper rain showing up in the progs. Maybe something about this time next week.
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Re: Classic autumn start March 1st to.....

Post by Sean »

hillybilly wrote: Tue Mar 06, 2018 2:00 pm
Same fella who has predicted Australia’s coldest winter on record. We haven’t seen a record month for decades so a big call...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... xpert.html

He's basically suggesting that because it happened in the Northern Hemisphere it will happen in the Southern Hemisphere. Problem is, Antarctica is land surrounded by water, the Arctic is water surrounded by land. The Arctic's jet steam has also weakened in the past, causing severe events like this, whereas the Southern Hemisphere hasn't seen events like that, not affecting the land anyway. I wouldn't be surprised, though. Weather isn't weather anymore, it's always an event... When snow, rain, heat or cold happen these days, it's breaking records or coming close to breaking records.

Is Earth's 10,000 years of a stable climate coming to end? It makes me wonder what that would mean for us if so given the birth and flourishing of human civilisation correlates with this this era of stable and predictable weather (remembering we, as modern humans had existed 200,000+ years before that). We do have technology nowadays, i.e. reliable heat in the winter, cold in the summer, but when 'events' happen, 'reliability' goes away, e.g. the black outs we had this summer.

All good things come to an end... and in the case of climate, whether natural or manmade, it's bloody expensive! Natural disasters caused 306 billion dollars worth of damage in the US alone in 2017.. And since the oceans are rising and coastlines changing, future generations will be spending billions of dollars saving current infrastructure instead of investing in newer, better technologies.

Of course I am forgetting that human activity is inert and completely separate to Earth's systems so we can't do anything about it. I need to watch some more to remind me 8-)

Edit: oh yeah, and it was a beautiful sunny day today :)
Last edited by hillybilly on Wed Mar 07, 2018 6:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Classic autumn start March 1st to.....

Post by hillybilly »

He's basically suggesting that because it happened in the Northern Hemisphere it will happen in the Southern Hemisphere. Problem is, Antarctica is land surrounded by water, the Arctic is water surrounded by land.
The media in OZ seem to think the UK is rather larger than reality. At the peak of the recent cold wave the northern hemisphere as a whole was running near 2C above average. Just wacky weather, but definitely not cold overall. The jet up there is getting wavier as the pole warms. Probably the craziest think during that spells was temperatures near the North Pole spiked to about 30C above average and went positive almost to the pole. That’s not been seen before in the winter night.

The Southern Hemisphere is behaving a bit different with the pole staying cold and the southern ocean warming more slowly because of its depth which keeps mixing warming down. Our jet is tightening and contracting poleward making it harder and harder for big cold outbreaks :(

EC and GFS showing a cooler week coming up next week with some showers. Not big totals, but even 5mm at this point would feel like a deluge here :?
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Re: Classic autumn start March 1st to.....

Post by hillybilly »

Cooler spell next week firming across the models. EC now has a proper cold outbreak. CMC and GFS get quite chilly.

Precip totals look ok in GFS and EC for southern areas. Could well be worth 10-20mm locally. Too far out to be that confident.

Meanwhile, the warm and dry weather just rolls on.
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Re: Classic autumn start March 1st to.....

Post by JasmineStorm »

First signs of a game changer.... Monsoon trough, cyclones, upper polar leak north. Too early to lock in of course....but its showing a pulse and worth a post :)

GFS has a powerful upper low connecting with moisture late next week on the 18z run, EC also showing a significant upper polar trough launching into SE OZ but with little moisture. If that upper low connects with a tropical water slide around S.A and Victoria on March 15th/16th, it could develop a deepening surface low that triggers a moisture advection water bomb running off a simmering bass strait and the Tasman. It would explode if the timing is right ;)
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