Cold and rain in Sydney 22/8/2008
This is interesting and worth a mention here.
Yesterdays rain, coastal thunderstorms and cold has produced an amazing weather anomaly for Sydney that should not be ignored. I was looking at the weather stations for Sydney and other localities and have discovered how cold it was in Sydney, especially for mid to late August.
Sydney city had a temperature reading of 12C at 3 pm 22/8/08. Most other readings were 11C (Terrey Hills) to 13C. Penrith had 15C at 3 pm.
It was 12C in Canberra at this time. Sydney and Canberra at 3 pm were the coldest Australian capital cities. It was 13C in Adelaide and Hobart being the next coldest main Australian cities.
It was 13C in Bathurst and 10C in Orange at the same time but only 7C in Bowral at 3 pm. Yet Oberon at 1,113 metres above sea level had 9C at 3pm. Oberon is higher in elevation than Bowral.
Sydney city was as cold as Armidale (elevation 980 metres) at 12C at 3 pm.
It was warmer in Glenn Innes on 13C (Elevation 1,030 metres) than in Sydney city. Tenterfield had 14C and that town is quite high in elevation too.
The cloud and rain certainly kept the top temperature down in Sydney and well below the August average.
It was also rather cold in SW New South Wales at 3 pm such as 6C at Temora and 9C at Grenfell and Wagga Wagga. It is not common to see places like Oberon and Orange considering their elevation being a few degrees warmer than places located on the lower slopes and plains in winter. One must also consider that places that are elevated have had a very cold August too.
In addition to the late winter cold came some moderate coastal rainfalls in some coastal areas of Sydney from 9 am 22/8/08 to 9 am 23/8/08. The highest being 26 mm at Hornsby and Randwick, 28 mm at Cronulla South, 29 mm at Little Bay, 30 mm at Ingleburn and Rose Bay and 33 mm at Turramurra. Falls tapered away from the coast.
Another amazing aspect was the thunderstorm activity that occurred along Sydney's eastern seaboard or just off the coast and north east New South Wales and off the north coast. The storms had weakened by 3 pm / 4 pm but there were 3,072 lightning strikes, the majority out to sea by 9.40 pm 22/8/08. Thus, if the cloud and rain had not been around and if it were night time, one would have seen a good lightning show off the coast.
Harley Pearman
