Topic: Lets Look at the other side: VIC, SA, TAS day to day weather

[Michael Bath]

Millilitres (ml) is a measurement of volume whereas millimetres (mm) is a length or depth - hence what we use to measure the depth of rainfall that has occurred.

You can use millimetres of rainfall to work out the volume of water that has fallen. For example 1mm of rain over one square metre equals 1 litre of water. Good to know when you have water tanks collecting rainwater off your roof - like I do

regards, Michael

[Peter J]

Thanks Mike, I honestly thought it was a bad grammer mistake by the BoM.

No rainfall in the gauge here yet today, but there has been a few storms to the east of me, particularly some severe ones near Orbost late this afternoon - not sure if they have had any hail, but the cu clouds seem to indicate very heavy rainfall in some places to the east of Vic.
Today was a warm day early, but by 430pm the wind had picked up and clouds rolled in and outside the temp dropped a fair way - its only expected to get to 19c here tomorrow, the coolest Feb day for some time. This month has been colder than normal, but still dry.
For those in NSW (in particlar Sydney), please be careful around the flooded areas. There has been too many lives lost to drowning in floodwaters this year worldwide. More than is necessary.

Keep Safe

Big Pete

[Michael Bath]

Sure does look like a cool day for Melbourne with the showers streaming in from the SSW at present.

[Peter J]

The last  two days in Melbourne have definitely been decidedly cooler, considering it is late summer - yesterday only got to 18c here, and last night the mercury dropped to near zero. It was certainly cold this morning at 530am when I left to go to work.

Also about 8mm of rain fell here yesterday in periodic showers.

Big Pete (frozen)
 

[Harley Pearman]

Lets look to the other side - 1/3/2008

Further to the previous posts, I came across an article in the Sydney Morning Herald - February 19 2008, titled:-

Rainfall prospects - Not good for south

Critical points are:-

a) Heavy rain brought by La Nina likely to dry up soon without having relieved southern Australia.

b) Dry areas will need to hope for tropical rain during March and April as the prospects for Autumn rain and winter rain do not good good.

c) Climate change seems to be affecting the volume of frontal rain in the south.

d) La Nina has peaked but SE is still dry.

e) Dr Love - Has stated that the chances of winter rain later in the year had diminished historically. The prospect of frontal rain for southern Australia is not as good as it was 20 to 30 years ago.

f) Latest climate modelling is suggesting that the rainfall in southern Australia will be reduced in a greenhouse world as greenhouse gas concentrations rise.

This article and others can be found in the Sydney Morning Herald - Science and Technology / Environment Section on their website at smh.com.au

Harley Pearman

[Steven]

Well though it has been cloudy, March has been fairly dry and cool so far, almost like an early to mid autumn weather pattern you see in mid April.

[Mike]

John do you have a link to that research article you posted above?  As for rainwater tanks - well that's another story up here, I'd love for every house to have one but complacency runs rampant when the dams are constantly at 90% even during the 6 month dry season.  A bane of my discussions everywhere.  Such a waste of water as we don't have guttering at all on any houses up here, it all ends up in the storm water and out to sea.....

[Peter J]

Strange weather in Melbourne today - it started with an unforecasted rain shower, and ended up a very warm Autumn day! - fickle is the modern weather.

At least 1mm made it to the gauge in the short sharp shower that ocurred in Box-Hill at about 10-10.30am this morning - a welcome sight to anyone in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne! Still... if La-Nina is going to have her way, we hope the winter rain season actually arrives this year as the dam capacity here is dropping by the day (at last check it was 35.3%).

Big Pete
(or Coach Capt. Big Pete now!! [g])

[Peter J]

I think fickle is not the word for it, I think weird is better! !-) Today has been cloudy at times, but very warm and humid - around 32deg here, but very muggy with no rain or storms to speak of. Must be a trough lingering near here, as i think it is causing the storms in Sydney.

Melbourne is expected to get very hot over the next 4 to 5 days, with temps exceeding 35deg for all 5 days, and YES, NO RAIN IN SIGHT (sigh).

Even March normally gets a good rain, but not this year - I'm wondering if the La-Nina pattern has been ignoring Melbourne and just letting us suffer the drought induced El-Nino for a little bit longer! I though a La-Nina event was supposed to bring rain down south - but it is excluding Melbourne (and to some degree Adelaide and Hobart) too often. I would think it may not be long before Level 4 water restrictions will need to be enforced here. Grey water is keeping the garden alive though - at least that is one good thing!

Big Pete (very parched).

[Harley Pearman]

Hello

I have had a look at rainfall figures for Victoria for February and the summer in general which is available on the Bureau of Meteorology website. Quite a contrast. In particular:-

a) NE Victoria finished with satisfactory rains.
b) Eastern Victoria mainly around Gippsland had satisfactory rains.
c) Northern / North West and western Victoria had unsatisfactory rains. That is much of Victoria did not receive ample or adequate summer rainfall to arrest the water shortages.

Big Pete, your observations of the continuing dry are correct. An article I pulled out of Science and Technology / Environment Section of the Sydney Morning Herald dated March 4 2008 titled "Water Everywhere except the Murray" provides additional material. In particular:-

a) Water storages in the Murray River region (That includes northern Victoria) are so low that the 2008/2009 irrigation season could start with zero allocation again.

b) Basin inflows in 2007/2008 are double those of 2006/07 but they are only 25% of the long term average.

c) Hume Dam at Albury is still only 16% and with the dam being so low, the irrigation year could be disastrous again.

While some above average rains occurred in parts of NE Victoria, there was little runoff because the ground was so dry.

There has been a general easing of the drought but there has been inadequate rainfalls to make up for the deficiencies that have occurred over several years.

The Murray Darling Basin Commission has painted a bleak outlook despite La Nina rains bringing above average rains across much of the basin over summer.

There are some very good coloured maps and summaries for the state including graphs that can be located by going into the Media Section and Climate Summaries for Victoria within the Bureau of Meteorology website at www.bom.gov.au

Harley Pearman

[Peter J]

Hi all, just following on from the split gen weather thread (which i can't find on my machine) - just an update to Melbourne weather for the past 3 days.

It has been unbearably hot here the last 3-4 days with temps above 30 on each of those days (including today) - thur was 38, frid was 39, sat was supposed to be a cooler change day - ended up with 35, and so far today it is 37 (expected to exceed forecasted maximum again) - no rain on any of these days. Hot northerly winds have been whipping up, and RH's have been as low as 9% friday - very fire conducive! For all the storm days that occur, sometimes the fire days keep happening.

No rainfall so far, just 1.6mm this month (allegedly the lowest rainfall month in Melbourne each year for the past 5 years). I don't think there will be much rainfall before tuesday's cold front is due, and even then, not much on the horizon. Dam levels here are down to 33.7% and going lower by the day.

Big Pete
(needing relief from the heat!)
Welcome to the Big Southern Dry!

[Harley Pearman]

Hello

Further to Big Pete's discussion on the weather in Melbourne, I have before me some amazing temperature facts for the month of March for Melbourne City to add here. This is from 1/3/2008 to 17/3/2008 and taken from BOM - March Daily weather observations 2008. It is clear that Melbourne has had a hot spell but unless someone can advise otherwise, then this would be unusual.

It has reached 30 degrees in Melbourne city on 8 days so far this month but on 5 of those days, the temperature has topped 38 degrees Celsius being the 10, 13, 14, 16 and 17. It appears on the 17/3/2008, the temperature reached 40 degrees in parts of Melbourne such as Avalon - 41.3C, Geelong Airport - 40.7C and Laverton - 40.2C.

I am not aware of such a high number of 38 degree days occurring during the month of March for this city. I am not sure if this is a first or simply a rare event as I have never looked at Melbourne's weather statistics. It is certainly something unusual that I have noted. I am aware of a cool change that will certainly cool the city.

Further, the same heatwave has affected Adelaide and this city has recorded 15 days straight of 30 degree temperatures and it has hit 37.9 degrees or higher on at least 12 of those days from 5 to 16 (I have not checked the figures for 17/3/08).

This city has just set an Australian capital city record for the most number of days above 35 degrees in a row which is now 12 (Previous capital city record was Perth with 10 days set in February 1988).

Another amazing record that stands out in all of this is that on the night of 13/3/2008 and early 14/3/2008, the overnight minimum fell to 30.2 degrees Celsius. This is a new March minimum record for the city which was recorded at 6.35 am. (Brief summary from the media release titled - More South Australian temperature records tumble as heatwave continues - Date 17/3/2008).

Compare that for Sydney city in which the temperature only reached 30 degrees on 2 days this summer just passed.

During this period, I have noted that March to date where I live is currently warmer than that of February and it has reached 30 degrees on 6 days so far this month. This is more than what occurred during the months of November, December and February. However, the warmth is nowhere near as extreme as that of Melbourne and Adelaide.

Harley Pearman

[Jimmy Deguara]

Harley,

I cannot be certain but I was of the opinion that February 1983 brough some very high temperatures and possibly March as well. Can anyone verify this? This was during the period prior to the drought breaking rains if I am not mistaken.

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[Harley Pearman]

Hello

Further to Jimmy's reply 18/3/2008, I have found some statistical evidence of previous hot weather occurring in Melbourne during the month of March.

It appears that 1985 was a hot March as well. It is stated that there were 9 days when it reached 30 degrees in Melbourne. That figure appears to be the record for the most number of days when it has reached 30 degrees for that city.

It took 21 years (Being March 2006) before there was another hot March. There were 8 days during March 2006 when it reached 30 degrees.

March 1983 was mentioned but at the moment, I have not been able to find anything.

March 2008 has now produced 9 days when it has reached 30 degrees for that city so that 1985 figure has been equalled.

I also saw a one day temperature record for March being 38.7 Celsius set on 22 March 1998. Of course that was until 14 and 16 March 2008 when it reached 39.2 and 39.1 Celsius respectively thus beating that old record.

I found the above on a BOM archive weather site after typing into Google - Weather Statistics for Melbourne - March 1983. You will find various weather websites and archives by doing this and I just scrolled through some sites and came across these statistics.

In addition to researching the above statistics, I found out that Melbourne endured its hottest March night ever (Beating the March 3 1988 record) with a minimum of 26.9 degrees at 7.30 am (Source - Melbourne suffers warmest March night on record. The age, 18/3/08). This is quite amazing because the temperatures rose to 30 to 32 degrees by 10.30 am only to cool off by 12 noon to 23.4 degrees which is the City's  lowest temperature for the day (Source - BOM Latest weather observations for Melbourne 18/3/2008 - Up to 1.25 pm).

The same newspaper article (The Age) has also stated that Adelaide has just endured 15 days in a row with temperatures of 35 degrees or higher and confirming a new Australian capital city weather record for - The most number of days in a row above 35 degrees for an Australian Capital city.

The above only partially answers Jimmy's previous post but it appears that I may be able to find more where the first set of statistics came from. I will keep looking.


Harley Pearman

[Peter J]

Harley,

Man, I should look to you if I ever need weather stats, you are a stats machine!!

Harley is right. The night before's temp (monday) was a record high min temp for the day, and yes there are days in Melbourne where the mins and maxs seem to topsy turvey around a bit - eg I do remember a cool change arriving one day some years ago and the min was recorded at about 24c and the maximum for the day only reached 17 or 18c - something akin to a reversal of the norm. This does occur alot when cold fronts arrive during the early to mid morning after the previous day had stifling heat. Amazing that the recent cold front (cool change) did not yield any rain at all whatsoever - and it is one thing in Melbourne we are beginning to miss out on.

Also, I did hear an article on a major television station news report (not sure if it was 9 or 10), that once we approach the autumn equinox, the la-nina effect will break down. Does anyone else have any info on this, and is it true at all that only half of Australia was affected by this effect, and quite possibly the southern half (eg Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and Hobart - for capital city areas) have actually experienced a more closer to el-nino event? Your thoughts on a different thread perhaps?

Big Pete.
(glad to be cooled down, but still thirsty for rain here - raingauge to date for March 2008 in Mooroolbark - 1.4mm).