Vic Rain...Yeah That's Right Rain...Jan 31st-3rd Feb.

[Rhino]

Looks like we might get some actual rainfall around the end of the week into the weekend. Going purely off OCF at the moment but has 9mm for my area and similar totals or higher around the state with some areas looking real nice. Looks like the best chance in a long long while that we have had for something half decent. Still a few days off so plenty of time to downgrade, again, but am getting half excited......but models could be forecasting 2mm at the moment and I would be half excited. .

Rhino.

[Geoff]

Good things come to those who wait Rhino old chum! Well OCF has got over 50mm for our area over the 4 days, and considering it's usually a little conservative with it's predictions, I too may allow myself a little raising of the left eyebrow!

[stratospear]

Going on a beach holiday for a few days later this week. It will rain.... lots

[Rhino]

Yeah Geoff, mate if waiting time equates to amount of rainfall then it should come in buckets, but I"d settle for a thimble full at the moment.

Rhino.

[mad*moo73]

Nearly fell off the couch when I saw the forecast for rain everyday this week!!!!

[Rivergirl]

Can't wait!

[nafets]

Yeah OCF going for around 40mm here for the 3-4 days, sounds great! Ec about 30mm and gfs not really interested

[93ben]

I want rain but not as much as Queensland and NSW atm. Though it would sort of be exciting if it flooded here in Templestowe lol Never seen a flood in my life.

[qubert]

Just on a side note,the problem is as we crowd out the planet,we need more accomodating weather to maintain the status quo of our middle class lifestyles.This I feel this interferes with our judgement on what or who is responsible with weather variability.For example I believe we are in the midst of a climate shift as se aust appears to be in the grip of a severe drying phase over the last 30 years as a result of predominantly natural cycles.Living in the northwest of vic the dry started in the early 80s broken with a few wet spells but with the rainfall totals gradually dropping off over time.Even the big wet of 2011/12 was concentrated over a handfull of days(and then unusually tropical in nature) with prolonged dry spells in between.The cloudbases were high(little low level moisture) minimal lightning and thunder with towering cu's scenarios and little thermal/dust devil activity.Being a free flight pilot I have noticed these changes here.What is concerning at the moment we are in a neutral to slightly negative ENSO phase but rainfall wise experiencing severe drought like conditions here,and have for months...29mm in 5 months,1mm in jan so far.Will be interesting if it proves to be a precursor for the rest of the state..
So I expect no rain in the near future here and the current ex cyclone will most likely slide past vic with minimal totals in areas of the state where it matters.

[nafets]

It's raining fairly decently here now a big surprise, actually Intensifying over the area for once haha !

[Australis(Shell3155)]

Noticed a little bit here too..

[Rivergirl]

Welcome to the AWF qubert. Nice to get 3mm here in Ferny Creek

[Dane]

Good to see a few mm's for many suburbs around Melbourne.
BOM Cranbourne (about 3kms sth of me) got 4mm's to 9am, but I unfortunatly missed out again.
Got only 0.4mm's here to 9am my third succesive total of 0.4mm's.
MTD still a paltry 3.0mm's.

[Gordon]

3 mm here, our highest single fall this month ridiculously enough!

[johnno]

Even though we have lost the low we should still get some decent cold air pushing up through Thursday night into Friday with some reasonable rain & hail showers with the bay being so warm there should be some good dumpers. 20mm around some parts of the Metro isn't out of the question.

[Scott Lawrance]

Just hope some of that makes it to yea Johnno. So extremely dry at the moment.

[Rhino]

OCF giving me 5mm for the period but something is better than nothing I guess and as Johnno says parts of the metro area should do OK. Amazing we're scratching for a measly 5-10mm here with the copious amounts the eastern seaboard has been getting, would have been nice to get 25-50mm out of it also. Big sigh.............and back to daydreaming again.

Rhino.

[Australis(Shell3155)]

My vegie gardening efforts are a joke, strawberry's gone crunchy, tomatoes well they look like bean stalks.
Lucky no one has to survive on my produce..

[droughtbreaker]

About half of NSW is awash and likely to turn green as an emerald in coming weeks/months whilst we look out our windows at brown crunchy grass and shriveled trees and plants. Far eastern Victoria joined in the fun as well.

On a positive note, another 3.3mm here takes the January total to a massive 5.5mm, haha Only Jan 2009 has been drier here in the past 40 odd years and 2003 came within a couple of mm, also just 10mm in Jan 1990. Just quickly looking over my records and Feb has the bulk of the single figure months, mainly associated with El Ninos, eg.1982,1983 and 1994 but also a paltry 4.0mm in Feb 1991, also quite a few in the 10-20mm range. Hopefully this Feb doesn't turn out like this.

Consensus giving us around 10mm here. It is becoming obvious that the warm bay is increasing rainfall totals (none of the models showed anywhere near as much rain as we have seen in south central VIC over the past few days). With what looks like a vigorous southerly on Friday behind the trough/front on Thursday (which looks like bringing a solid band of rain to most), and a relatively intense upper trough passing over on Friday, I expect some surprisingly big falls for most of central VIC and even some reasonable falls in Northern VIC with the rain band.

Hopefully I'm not mozzing it but it looks good on paper at least. Here's hoping.

[Rhino]

You guys down south must be all dancing around naked with rashes of bacon and garlic bulbs around your necks to get those "massive" falls, I'm desperate for rain here but perhaps not that desperate .
Can only hope Andrew that something happens that the models aren't picking up on and delivers a bit more than expected, will be a nice surprise.

Rhino.