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Unstable air brings showers and the odd storm over the NT's eastern Top End, tropical north QLD and northeast NSW. Showers over western TAS, far southern VIC and far southeast SA with a nearby front. Drier and mostly settled elsewhere with a broad ridge of high pressure.
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Today, 1:29AM UTC
Darwin's hottest day of the year?
Darwin could be heading for its hottest day of 2024 to date this Tuesday, with a top of 35°C on the cards and the potential to edge up towards 36°C. While we tend to think of Darwin having almost uniform maximum temperatures of 32°C or thereabouts, that's not quite true. Darwin's temperature fluctuations may not be as pronounced as the southern capitals, but our northernmost city still experiences swings of several degrees in its maximum and minimum temperatures on both a seasonal and daily basis. In seasonal terms: Darwin's coldest two months are June and July, with max temps of 30.8°C and 30.7°C respectively. Darwin’s three warmest months for average maximum temps are October (33.3°C), November (33.4°C), and April (32.8°C). So Darwin's three warmest months (in terms of max temps) fall between the wet and dry seasons, when warmer days are made more likely by a combination of clear skies and slightly more daylight than the winter months. In daily terms: Like any location, Darwin can and does experience daily temperatures spikes and troughs depending on cloud, sunlight, wind direction, humidity, and local factors. Indeed, Darwin’s hottest day of 2024 to date was January 2 with 35.6°C, at the end of a relatively dry two-week spell by wet season standards. Temperatures of 35°C or slightly higher are expected on three days this week in Darwin under persistent southeasterly – a wind direction that tends to push warm, dry air from the interior of the continent towards the Top End. If you take a look at Tuesday's synoptic chart (above), you can see how air circulating around the belt of high pressure centred over southern Australia is funneling towards the Top End, passing through the warm interior of the continent. As mentioned, that pattern generally means an upwards nudge of a couple of degrees on for Darwin's daily maximums. Meanwhile for those interested in what this year's wet season was like in Darwin, the chart below shows that the heart of the wet season was slightly wetter than usual while the shoulder period saw less rainfall than the long-term average.
15 Apr 2024, 3:38AM UTC
Perth storms drench some suburbs, leave others bone dry
The heavy rain that Perth residents are so desperately hoping for drenched some northern suburbs on Friday afternoon, but ultimately fizzled out in most parts of the city, delivering just 1.2 mm to the city's official weather station, while numerous locations in and around the metropolitan area missed out altogether. After Perth's driest six-month period in 148 years of records from the beginning of October through to the end of March, April had been totally rainless across the city until late afternoon on Friday, April 12. While the Weatherzone radar tantalisingly showed showers within a close coo-ee of the CBD, the heaviest rain stayed just north of the city, with flash flooding and unconfirmed reports of up to 100 mm in some suburbs while in suburbs further south the ground barely got wet. HAPPENING NOW: The drought has been broken for some of Perth’s northern suburbs, with heavy rain and hail after months of dry weather. ????? #9News pic.twitter.com/Mj6hpJHYLt — 9News Perth (@9NewsPerth) April 12, 2024 As Weatherzone meteorologist Brett Dutschke wrote on Saturday, for the areas that did get wet on Friday, it was the first rain in: Twelve weeks at Rottnest Island (just 0.2mm) Seven weeks at Swanbourne (1.0mm) Six weeks at Arena (0.8mm), Jurien Bay (4.6mm), Geraldton (0.6mm), Coolangatta (14mm), Badgingarra (4mm), and Gingin 16.4 mm Five weeks in Perth’s Mt Lawley (1.2mm), Jandakot (9.2mm), Jarrahdale (3.8mm), Pearce (11.2mm), Bickley (4.0mm) and Anketell (10.3mm) But overall, this was far from the significant rain even the entire southwest of WA needs, and regrettably, no such event looms on the immediate horizon. READ MORE: Desperately dry in southwest WA As any local knows, cold fronts which arise in the southern Indian Ocean usually produce the heaviest rainfall for the southwest, however such systems are still being blocked by unusually strong and persistent highs centred south of the continent. Indeed the airmass that produced the outburst of storms on Friday had tropical origins, and no moisture at all made it to coastal districts south of Perth. Source: BoM. The image above shows rainfall for the week up to Sunday, April 14. It paints a familiar picture for the first few months of 2024, with rain in inland areas but nothing in the southwest. We wrote recently about how Busselton had seen less than one millimetre of rain in 2024 to date and that is still true for the town two hours south of Perth, which is the gateway to the Margaret River surf and wine region. READ MORE: Jarrah trees dying in WA's big dry Meanwhile another dry week looms ahead for Perth and the southwest, and this one promises to be warmer than last week, when Perth maximums were in the mid-to high twenties from Monday through to Sunday. This week, Perth should top 30°C from Tuesday through to Sunday, reaching 34°C on Thursday. That’s far from record-setting territory – Perth's highest April temp was 39.5°C in 2020 – but it’s still well above the average April max of 25.9°C. More to the point, such warm temperatures at this time of year are almost invariably associated with the likelihood of dry weather. READ MORE: Perth's long frustrating wait for rain
15 Apr 2024, 1:35AM UTC
No rain for most of Australia this week
Solar output across large areas of Australia should peak this week, with many areas not expected to receive a drop of rain. The dry week across WA, parts of the NT, SA and Vic this week comes as blocking high pressure systems prevent any major cold fronts from impacting the regions this week. The satellite image below shows that most of Australia is experiencing a sunny Monday morning. Image: Himawari-9 satellite image at 10:45am on Monday, April 15 During the next seven days large parts of the country will not receive a millimetre of rain. Image: Accumulated rain to 10am on Monday, April 22, according to ECMWF However, large totals are expected in Far North Qld as a trough develops in the region later this week. Northeast NSW will also see some decent rainfall this week, with a coastal trough and potentially a low forming offshore during the middle of the week. Most of Australia with the exception of parts of Qld, eastern NSW, western Tas and the Top End should see above average solar output this week in response to the lack of cloud. While solar output will be higher, winds on average over southern Australia will be lighter this week due to the lack of strong cold fronts sweeping across the country.
Weather in Business
03 Apr 2024, 4:35AM UTC
Solar booms as Adelaide records sunniest March in 30 years
Southern Australia saw an abundance of clear skies during March, causing rooftop solar to soar to new heights. The run of sunny days was caused by blocking high pressure systems that prevented cloud and rain bearing cold fronts from sweeping across southern Australia. The clear skies led to Melbourne recording its driest March on record with a measly 2.8mm total, beating the previous record of 3.7mm in March 1934. Adelaide was also dry, recording 27 days without a drop of rain, while Sydney picked up 52.5mm of rain and Brisbane 152.8mm. Across the four major NEM capital cities: Melbourne saw its sunniest March in 18 years, with an average of 8.5 hours of sunlight each day. Adelaide recorded the sunniest March since 1994, averaging 10.4 hours of sunshine per day. Sydney observed an average of 7 hours of sunlight per day, which is the most sun hours the city has seen in two years. Brisbane was the cloudiest of these cities with only 5.7 hours of sunshine on average per day, consistent with above average rain falling in the city. The lack of cloud and rain across southern Australia led to increased rooftop solar output across the region in March 2024. Data from OpenNEM shows that rooftop solar in Victoria was the highest on record this March since rooftops installations begun in 2007. The graphs below show the warm season rooftop solar contribution to the National Electricity Market (NEM). Images: Warm season (October- March) rooftop solar power (GW/h). Data sourced: OpenNEM, AEMO, APVI. The rising trend in the graph above for VIC looks remarkably similar for SA, with March 2024 producing 294 GWh / month across the state, compared to 252 GWh / month from March 2023. The graph also highlights that the total solar generation has been increasing year-on-year since 2018, driven by a boom in solar installations across Australia. The Clean Energy Council reported that in 2023, renewable energy supplied a record 39.4% of Australia's electricity, led by wind's 13.4% share. Rooftop solar cracked a 10% share for the first time, reaching 11.2% ahead of solar farms at 7% and hydro's 6.5% share. During March 2024, rooftop solar across SA supplied 24.5% of SA’s energy needs, the largest in the NEM. Meanwhile renewable energy contributed 77% of SA’s power, with wind taking the lead with a 43.5% contribution. Image: March contribution to renewables in SA, Vic, NSW, Qld, Data sourced: OpenNEM, AEMO, APVI. Rooftop solar is the leading renewable across NSW and Qld, contributing between 11 and 12 percent to the state's energy needs, followed by solar farms then wind. Weatherzone Business and Solcast are a market-leading partnership delivering highly specialised solar data to the Australian renewable energy industry. Designed for utility scale solar sites, we offer you a globally proven solution. With low upfront CAPEX and powerful cloud-based information systems, you can access a complete suite of irradiance and weather data to ensure forecast accuracy and improve site efficiency. Solcast is the world leader in real-time actuals and rapid-update solar forecasts. This solution utilises Solcast’s centralised Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) cloud infrastructure for all complex algorithmic processes and data plumbing. You will gain the power of AWS to interpret and deliver your data at top speed, providing real-time, historical and forecasting estimates direct to your API. Receive monitoring and support from the Weatherzone and Solcast teams, 24/7. For more information, please contact us at business@weatherzone.com.au.
31 Jan 2024, 5:54AM UTC
Powerful waves to impact port operations
Deceptively powerful surf is forecast for this weekend, as heavy waves originating from the Southern Ocean hit the NSW coastline. The heavy surf will be whipped up by a low-pressure system sweeping across the south of the continent later this week. The map below shows wave heights of 3-4m are expected across the central and southern NSW coast on Friday and Saturday. Image: Significant wave height forecast at 5pm Saturday, February 3 according to Wave Watch III In Sydney waters, wave heights are forecast to peak at 4 to 4.5 metres on the weekend. These wave heights will create very rough seas off the Sydney and Illawarra coasts on the weekend. While the waves will be large, it's the wave period that will generate the deceptively powerful surf. Wave period is the average time between crests (or troughs) of waves. The larger the time difference, the greater the amount of energy associated with the waves or swells. The wave period should reach 10-12 seconds along the Sydney coast and south on Saturday. The map below shows the high period waves impacting the central and southern coastline on Saturday. Image: Wind wave period at 4pm on Saturday, February 3, according to Wave Watch III Looking ahead, the long period swell should move offshore by Monday easing conditions along the NSW coastline. Weatherzone Business offers a comprehensive suite of services, refined through years of collaboration with the marine, ports and offshore industries, to optimise the safety and efficiency of your operations. For more information, please contact us at business@weatherzone.com.au.
