Vic - Extended heat spell - 3rd Jan 2013 to 12th Jan 2013

[Rhino]

Don't really know how to sum up the weather at the moment, when a model actually has some rainfall forecast it accounts to nothing, for here anyway, depressing would be the word I'm looking for. BOM has some rainfall tommorow and OCF 1mm so may actually get a trace but heck, unless we get moisture from the nth soon and a system it can tap into might have to write jan off, and it's shockingly dry here even for summer, some of my natives have carked it after the successive hot days .

Rhino.

[Geoff]

Nice and fresh today, but sheesh even up here things are drying out now. Tomorrow looks like it could be another one of those days where it rains on and off all day and nothing is recorded in the raingauge (we've had a few of those lately). As for Thursday it will all come down to timing I feel, EC seems to want to push the cool change through a bit earlier in the day which would be a blessing, but it will all depend on TC Narelle. Latest IR images seem to show her slowing down and weakening, not a good sign for us, will probably mean Thursday will be a stinker, we need her to speed up a bit and come through quicker on the westerly change in order to make Thursday safer down here. UNISYS has the extreme heat airmass finally leaving the country around Thursday onwards so that's a good sign at least. All a fair way off yet, and will be keeping fingers and toes crossed until then.

[droughtbreaker]

Some models show promise of the current extreme heat and dry pattern breaking down and a shift to wet and tropical like conditions (still looking pretty warm, I can't see any major cool spells ahead), however GFS in its latest run is already showing signs of reneging on that as well and it all seems to be dependent on a decaying tropical cyclone rapidly spreading inland and to be perfectly honest it is all pure speculation when trying to predict TC development and behaviour so far ahead. Hopefully the monsoon is on its way back and we can get some tropical infeeds into the continent and eventually down to the SE by the end of the month.

This system that we are discussing is shaping up to be an incredible disappointment. At one stage there were 5-10mm falls predicted here and now it is down to about 1mm. There is not much of a trigger although I swear I can see a fairly sharp upper trough coming through in the modelling along with some pretty cool air. Surely this will have some sort of effect on lifting the moisture over us atm, (it was quite muggy today and humidity seems to be rising atm).

It's been a very dry spring/summer period so far and temps well above average, still it's hard to grasp just how dry it is here atm considering how wet the ground was as recently as late October (I took photos of some very green scenery in late October), deciduous trees are going into early autumn at an alarming rate and it's just like walking on potato chips out there, about 95% of the grass has turned to hay.

Even during the prolonged drought period of 2001-2009 where we also had record breaking temps all over the place, deciduous trees weren't showing as much stress as now, it's almost as if the change in soil moisture is just as important as how dry it actually is. IMO many plants can not take going from very wet to very dry and vice versa.

[Rhino]

Yeah this time 2 years ago (yesterday) we had a foot of water through the house and we would'nt live in it for 7 months, last summer was good rains, normal rain for spring/summer but this spring and summer has been bad. Didn't get the really good rains alot of sth areas got so really started spring on the back foot and has just got worse. Can only hope the late start to the monsoon has something to do with it and may change rapidly, at least to get a storm and more than 1-2mm.............. I would love to get 1-2mm at the moment though. Can take the heat, it's summer, but heck we want some rain mixed in too.

Rhino.

[Rhino]

Yeah we can only hope we don't go down the line of the years before 2010/11, this is only temporary IMO, just lack of any meaningful rainfall, more than 5mm, over the last 3 months has been the annoying part. Storms have been non-existent this spring/summer so can't get rain out of something your not getting and the other systems aren't delivering either. Things will change soon I think but an awful dry period even for summer which is only exacerbated by the numbers of very hot days we've been having nth of the ranges.
Damn cool this morning, have to pull out the pants again damn it, 20C today 39C Thurs, got love vic weather.

Rhino.

[droughtbreaker]

It's just 12.5C here atm, albeit a dry 12.5C.

The westerlies have remained well south of where they should be in the cooler months which has also contributed to some very mild winters and near record breaking temps in early August a couple of years ago. This winter however bucked the trend somewhat with well above average falls for every month of winter for most places on and south of the ranges. The temps were still mild though and the westerlies remained slack and somewhat south.

This current drought and heatwave period is extremely depressing, even more so than most of the 2000s drought, somehow it seems worse now!

[Australis(Shell3155)]

Rhino.. has 2 years gone that quick since the floods.. OMG..

WS here reading 41.9.. think the heat got to it.. maybe needs a squirt with the hose..

[stratospear]

Western Vic is picking up some rain now - a few centres up to 4mm so far today

Some amazing temperature gradients as well - for example Swan Hill is currently 15degC, while Ivanhoe in NSW is 34 degC!
There is even the possibility of a few record low max temps for January being broken: Bendigo has so far reached only 15.8c, and its Jan record (since 1991) is 17.5c.

I'm not all that depressed given that there are many examples in the past of hot and dry summers which have been followed up with cold, wet, and snowy winters (i.e. 1981, 1990, 1995, 2003, 2010).

[Rhino]

Rhino.. has 2 years gone that quick since the floods.. OMG..

Yeah Shell time flies when your having fun..........perhaps not. Couldn't believe it myself and only reason I did remember was someone mentioned 2 years since the Toowoomba floods and we were just a day after that.

Some decent, use the term lightly, rain around nth parts today. 4mm at Charlton and Nhill, none here though.

Rhino.

[Geoff]

It's plain crazy isn't it? The world thinks we're burning up down here (and some places are of course) and yet there are places in Vic and SA today that are having record cold temps for January!!! Just bizarre, don't you just love the weather?
Currently a very chilly and grey 14.5c in mid afternoon.

[Jake Smethurst]

Only 17 degrees here today, very cool! Cardigan is on!!

Nice little band of rain up north, shame we're not seeing much rain out of it.

[Macedonian]

We only made it to 13C today, breezy and cool, its nice for a change, too much heat is a bad thing. Ive been handwatering the garden all weekend, it is dry as a bone here. The volcanic soil here is good for growth but it drains very sharply. we dont have any soil moisture at all up here. That coupled with the whitefly plague that has been around since late spring is why a lot of trees and plants and even lawns are looking far worse than you would expect. I imagine it is the lack of rain that is allowing the whitefly to proliferate. It is DDT time.

[johnno]

Nice little shower in the Northern suburbs 1.4mm at Essendon airport.

Strato Summer of 1995 was a mix bag we had the most humid January on record for Melbourne then heaps of storms and over 100mm in Melbourne with the Australian tennis court at the open being flooded

[stratospear]

Strato Summer of 1995 was a mix bag we had the most humid January on record for Melbourne then heaps of storms and over 100mm in Melbourne with the Australian tennis court at the open being flooded

I included 1995 since it was at the tail end of an ElNino year (1994) that had a dry spring, an extremely hot/dry December (very similar to this month), and a late February heatwave, even if there was a burst of tropical weather in late January that summer.

[Rivergirl]

Just arrived back from Sydney. The drive was so different to going up with temps of 42C and fires. Driving back today could only smell smoke and see where the fires had been as in the one at Tarcutta that jumped the freeway. Not long after passing the turn off to Wagga Wagga (waves to apocalypse we drove into rain for a couple of hours. At Glenrowan there were sheets of water on the highway. Arriving back in the hills we had to put the heating on after being in Sydney which is more humid. They had 42C on Tuesday and I was out in it as had organised a photography day with a friend and even tho I knew what the temp was going to be didn't want to cancel.

[droughtbreaker]

16C maximum here today which is probably as low as the max temp gets in a typical January. The main culprit of course was the cloudiness rather than it being a particularly cold airmass.

Interesting Macedonian brings up insect attack. I am unaware of any infestations here atm, but IMHO, the extreme damage to plants around here atm, especially deciduous trees (and of those particularly birches and poplars and young trees that haven't established) can not be attributed to the heat and dry alone. We had a similar thing happen last January when we had a hot and dry January in amongst the very wet period that we were generally experiencing, and certain trees went into early Autumn. It's happening again now but very severe. Some trees have literally dropped about 80% of their leaves and will soon be totally bare!

I saw similar damage (but not quite as bad) in East Gippsland and even right up the NSW coast to Pambula. Those areas haven't been as dry and certainly not as hot as here in recent months and I can't imagine why there would be so much damage to trees there. The native bush around here doesn't look anywhere near as bad, it is mainly ornamentals suffering atm. I think a big factor may be people not watering their gardens and the council being slack on watering street trees. We have been watering extensively here and have relatively minimal damage to our ornamental plants atm.

Just had a shower that lasted about a minute but it was the most we have seen in about 3 weeks. Obviously not enough to register but I guess there is hope it could develop a bit more tonight. I'll repeat that it's seriously depressing here atm for someone who loves nature, flora and fauna and gardens and stuff like that and hates to see everything brown, yellow, dying and scorched. I feel like going into hibernation until it all breaks.

[Geoff]

I too am intrigued by Macedonian's theory of the whitefly infestations causing so much dieback, because I've been aware for some weeks now that there are clouds of the damn things swarming off every plant and lawn in the garden when you walk past them or on them. It makes sense that these sap sucking bugs could have caused so much damage, rather than a relatively dry spell, which just doesn't compare to the 2009 drought year. Interesting!
Time to move on to the new thread re. Thursday's hot one...

[Australis(Shell3155)]

White Fly, you should have seen my hot house, brush past something and you nearly ate them breathing.
Eco Neem and moving lots out into the garden along with sticky traps has nearly got that sorted.
They did make a mess of tomatoes potatoes and some peppers leaves.
hydrangea's and few others are full of them outside.
Koo Wee Rup a friends lawns still have green to them even after being scalped with a lawn mower,
mine are brown and dead looking ground in back yard, east is hiden by house and plants little bit of green but under gums are yellowed.
have had to use upper yarra water on gardens in ldry and toilets now for some time as my 11k litres went a long time ago.
and we are on rocky clay, from really boggy few months back to this is dissapointing to look at,
maybe need a tread to share some browned off garden pics..

[Australis(Shell3155)]

Noticing Dead and dying Gum tree's like 2005 2006.

[Rivergirl]

On the drive from Melbourne to Sydney I saw so many more gum trees dead and dying than I have ever seen before and I have driven that route many, many times over the last 28 years.