Rain, gales, heat, storms and snow to end winter: August 20-

[hillybilly]

An exceptional spell of weather on the progs with an intense temperature gradient between record heat over inland Australia and seasonal cool temperatures to our south setting up a quick succession of systems. Starts with a series of troughs this week with weak bands of rain, then a warm front on Friday ushers in record or near record warm air for the weekend, followed by severe westerly gales with alternating fronts and ridges.

Inland going to be dominated by exceptional warmth and strong winds. Places like Oodnadatta may well see multiple days over 37C breaking the SA record on multiple times. In contrast western Tasmania is going to see a hose pipe of wet storms with hundreds of mms of rain and eventually very low level snow. In-between you get a mix.

Thinking the Victoria, NSW, South Australia, Queensland, NT, Western Australia and national record high temps could fall (Victoria probably least likely), but ironically some areas in the south will get big falls of rain. Also watch for a big surge on the coast with very large waves into next week.

Today will see mild weather start to move in for most and the first shower bands.

[StratoBendigo]

Good chance of 30-50mm here for the rest of this month which could get us back to close to average rainfall. And perhaps straight back into the depths of winter around the 28th August too...

[StratoBendigo]

7mm so far today. Now there's a thunderstorm rumbling away to our West.

[QldTwister]

Yeah mild windy period coming up sadly inland wont get much rain but south and mount and Tas do well

The huge area of gales to strom force winds mid to late next week across southern Aus looks very impressive.
Winter gales for sure and many areas could see 80 to 100km/h winds if not more 130 plus about mounts and possibly coast crazy amount of wind next week after a low 20s weekend loving warmth but know more freezing weather not far away.

Very active 2 weeks ahead with tons of wind least u wont be bored but feel for crops in north vic warm and wind going to kill them they really really need a soak

[hillybilly]

Nice frost here yesterday then the warm front ran over the top with a bit of rain. Only a mm or so for much of the southeast but bigger falls in the north. Victoria messy and patchy but everything is welcome. Quite a few spring like thunderies.

Bit of an inbetween day today then a trough approached later Thursday. This is a quite impressive warm front and will usher in a very mild to warm weekend. Not much rain for VIC on that trough but could be heavy falls for much of TAS on Saturday. At the same time the Mallee will make a run at 30C on both Saturday and Sunday.

Next week looks wild, particularly for more southern areas. EC putting near record low pressure through Hobart with an intense westerly set up. Will produce a lot of snow down here on the mountains while the mainland has day after day of above average temps, and a pretty good chance of break the Australian winter high almost every day next week Watch for big waves and a sizeable storm surge on the coast with some flooding likely.

[StratoBendigo]

We're up to 24mm in the past week. It's slowly making up for the deficient.

[hillybilly]

We're up to 24mm in the past week. It's slowly making up for the deficient.

You could well make average in the end. Same for most of Victoria and am expecting most of TAS to end up way above average. Showers or rain most days.

Nothing to report here the last 24 hours as rain gets shreaded but the ranges. Later today looks better. Good falls out west, and along the ranges in Victoria. Even a few rumbles.

Friday into Saturday set up for one of the strongest warm fronts I’ve seen. Ahead of the low currently near Perth we see northerlies kick in which basically go all the way from Cairns to south of Hobart. With record heat trapped in the tropics already, that’s going to set up much of Australia for the warmest winter week on record. Could see 40C in South Australia which would break the state record by an astonishing 3.5C. Thats bigger than the margin we saw record broken in February 2009.

The warm front has a strong rainband over Tasmania which doesn’t happen often. 850 temps to the north of the band are around 12C while to the south they are about 2C. The whole sequence is going to be a big wash out on the snowfield. Expect snow depths to be the lowest on record by the start of next week

[Didjman]

Next week looks wild, particularly for more southern areas. EC putting near record low pressure through Hobart with an intense westerly set up. Will produce a lot of snow down here on the mountains while the mainland has day after day of above average temps, and a pretty good chance of break the Australian winter high almost every day next week Watch for big waves and a sizeable storm surge on the coast with some flooding likely.

A result of the SSW over Antarctica a couple of weeks back

[StratoBendigo]

Next week looks wild, particularly for more southern areas. EC putting near record low pressure through Hobart with an intense westerly set up. Will produce a lot of snow down here on the mountains while the mainland has day after day of above average temps, and a pretty good chance of break the Australian winter high almost every day next week Watch for big waves and a sizeable storm surge on the coast with some flooding likely.

A result of the SSW over Antarctica a couple of weeks back

Largely. Along with the timing of the MJO pulse and a persistent Long-wave trough SW of Perth. We could end up with a 1969 situation - a September that's colder than August.

[hillybilly]

Wild day down here with gales, bands of heavy showers and even a bit of snow on the mountain. 4mm for the day, but up to 10mm around here where showers have been better. Progs basically unchanged, but stringing out the sequence all the way til September.

EC put an absolutely gobsmacking 41C into South Australia on Saturday. That’s more than 4C hotter than anything seen before if that happens.

[stevco123]

Wild day down here with gales, bands of heavy showers and even a bit of snow on the mountain. 4mm for the day, but up to 10mm around here where showers have been better. Progs basically unchanged, but stringing out the sequence all the way til September.

EC put an absolutely gobsmacking 41C into South Australia on Saturday. That’s more than 4C hotter than anything seen before if that happens.

"Anything seen before" is a big call, especially since a lot of weather stations are less than 100 years old.
Sure,could well be record breaking and no doubt the media will jump on it quickly, but our data is pretty unreliable with a lot of places where the "record heat" might happen only having less than 100 years of records. For example, Oodnadatta's record is 36.5 back in 1946, but their data goees back to 1932. There is every chance there were equally hotter conditions prior to that period. The potential record breaking August warmth should be taken with a grain of salt.

[hillybilly]

Wild day down here with gales, bands of heavy showers and even a bit of snow on the mountain. 4mm for the day, but up to 10mm around here where showers have been better. Progs basically unchanged, but stringing out the sequence all the way til September.

EC put an absolutely gobsmacking 41C into South Australia on Saturday. That’s more than 4C hotter than anything seen before if that happens.

"Anything seen before" is a big call, especially since a lot of weather stations are less than 100 years old.
Sure,could well be record breaking and no doubt the media will jump on it quickly, but our data is pretty unreliable with a lot of places where the "record heat" might happen only having less than 100 years of records. For example, Oodnadatta's record is 36.5 back in 1946, but their data goees back to 1932. There is every chance there were equally hotter conditions prior to that period. The potential record breaking August warmth should be taken with a grain of salt.

Guess it depends on your definition of seen. It was certainly warmer 200 million years ago during the end Permian when CO2 last increased at a rate comparable to what’s happening now. But in the time of observations we’ve not seen anything close.

[hillybilly]

Wild night down here with big gusts and heavy showers. On the western ranges near 50mm while down here south of Hobart nearly 15mm in the gauge. Very mild, though, with temps around 10C through the night despite what appear to be solid coldies.

Interesting day ahead as warm air sweeps southeast. Warm front comes through Victoria today with a sliding rainband which becomes heavy as it reaches Tasmania early Saturday. Melbourne miss the warmest air but the Mallee will get it, and Victoria may well see its first winter 30C on record. Pretty likely South Australia will see its first 40C, which I expect will be a record for the highest temperature recorded in winter outside of the tropics anywhere in the southern hemisphere. This is a truely historic event. Not good for our farmers and ski resort owners who have to deal with these increasing extremes.

Next week will be wild. Huge winds across Tasmania, and impacting the mainland near the fronts. The system on Tuesday/Wednesday is shaping up as very strong.

[StratoBendigo]

Well, that's a surprise. Quite the lightshow right now with a fast moving thunderstorm above us. Can't see much rain in it though.

[hillybilly]

Well, that's a surprise. Quite the lightshow right now with a fast moving thunderstorm above us. Can't see much rain in it though.

That is great to hear. Hopefully bumps you above average soon.

Just grey murk down here today. Mild with a max of 15C. Cloud slowly increasing now.

Southeast Oz going to be split tomorrow between and warm mostly dry mainland and a cool rainy Tasmania.

Sunday looks very active with a big storm outbreak for Victoria.

[StratoBendigo]

Yeah, Sunday afternoon looks like it'll be very volatile. It has potential for severe storms (supercells even) and not insignificant rainfall. Something to keep an eye on.

A few storms have drifted over this evening. 5mm today thus far.

[hillybilly]

Rainy morning down here, though totals less than the models were suggesting. 4mm so far, and just under 20mm for the thread. Slowly creeping up on average.

Warm for Victoria, with a new August state record not out of the question, but suspect a miss by a degree or two. Unfortunately snow fields taking a battering, and now have lowest or near lowest depths on record. Terrible for the hard working folks up there.

South Australia will set another record high with numbers near 40C in the north.

[StratoBendigo]

Indian Ocean SSTa is worth noting. Really warm patch South of India, and a cold patch near Java is having a strong influence IMO.

There could be a supercell outbreak in Vic tomorrow afternoon looking at those SRH values... Tornado anyone?

[Wilko]

Supercells

[hillybilly]

Sat under the warm front all day down here with cloud base around 100m with light rain, drizzle and fog. Max of just 11.5C but being calm and humid actually didn’t feel cold. Not as much rain as expected, just over 5mm here.

Bit different across Bass Strait with 27.7C the peak at Mildura. Bit below the record, but could be an early season record. Not easy to check that one. Oodnadatta demolished the old SA record with a crazy 39.4C. Expecting the Australian record will fall this week, probably a few times. Glad we are missing that down in Victoria and Tasmania.

Strong front for tomorrow with a big storm outbreak for Victoria. The airmass is remarkably humid for winter with precip water values over 30mm That said the cell will move really quickly so not expect big falls. Diagnostics look nasty for supercells. With strong winds aloft could be some big squalls and brief heavy rain, and definitely funnels can’t be ruled out.