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Showers & storms are occurring in the NT's Top End, far north QLD & NSW's north & east in unstable easterly winds. Showers are scattering across VIC's south & Tas's west in onshore winds. Clear and settled elsewhere with high pressure.
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Today, 1:29AM UTC
Devilishly dry in Tasmania
Tasmania has had an exceptionally dry start to 2024, with rainfall deficiencies across the entire state as of mid-April. Take a look at the chart below. It shows the rainfall anomalies from January 1 to April 17 – or in other words, the amount of rainfall relative to the running average. As you can see, no part of the state has had more rain than the long-term average to date in 2024. Source: BoM. A quick glance at the map above might lead you to think that the southwest corner of the state has had the least rain. That's not true. It's actually one of the wettest parts of Australia, so while it is hundreds of millimetres down on the running average, the east has actually been drier both in real terms and relative terms. That's illustrated in the rainfall deciles chart below which covers the period from January 1 to the end of March. Source: BoM. Hobart is very much in the red zone, and you its monthly rainfall over the last 12 months is depicted in the graph below. Just two of the last 12 months exceeded the average rainfall, and not by much. February and March 2024 were exceptionally dry months, with less than 10 mm of accumulated rainfall in both months. Why so dry? The positive Southern Annular Mode (SAM) has led to consistent high pressure systems positioned over latitudes well south of Australia. This has kept cold fronts south of the mainland, and even south of Tasmania. READ MORE: WHAT IS THE SAM? The chart below shows the mean sea level pressure (MSLP) anomalies from January through to the end of March. Orange means higher pressure than the average, blue means lower pressure than the average. Long story short, the intense cold fronts south of Tasmania have been blocked from moving further north by the consistent highs. Source: climatereanalyzer.org. As for the week ahead, expect only very light showers here and there across the state with dry conditions prevailing in most places, although the west coast should see an increase in shower activity into the new week.
17 Apr 2024, 6:41AM UTC
Dubai deluge: a year's rainfall in a day
Flights have been unable to land or take off from flooded runways, chunks of major roads have eroded away, while motorists have been trapped on inundated freeways as rare heavy rainfall lashed Dubai. More than 100 mm of rain fell within 24 hours across the desert city of almost six million people which is a popular stopover for Australians en route to Europe. That's more than the annual average of 94.7 mm. Torrential rains across the United Arab Emirates prompted flight cancellations, forced schools to shut and brought traffic to a standstill. The heavy rains that caused widespread flooding across the desert nation stemmed partly from cloud seeding.#Dubai pic.twitter.com/tbjFlTL2QQ — Muhammad Tanzeel (@DrTanzeel8) April 17, 2024 The cooler months from December through to March generally produce Dubai's heaviest rain, with almost no rain on average in the hotter months and an average of around 7 mm in April. Tuesday's unusually heavy rain was caused by "an extension of a surface low pressure system, accompanied by an extension of an upper air low pressure system" according to The National Center of Meteorology of the United Arab Emirates. Dramatic footage showed planes awash on the submerged tarmac of Dubai Airport. All aircraft movements stopped for two hours on Tuesday evening with airport authorities urging travellers to check the status of flights through their airline. ??We advise you NOT to come to the airport, unless absolutely necessary. Flights continue to be delayed and diverted. Please check your flight status directly with your airline. We are working hard to recover operations as quickly as possible in very challenging conditions. — DXB (@DXB) April 17, 2024 Wednesday has dawned cloudy in Dubai and while torrential rain has ceased, schools have been shut across the city with the government encouraging workers to work remotely. In neighbouring Oman, flash floods had claimed 18 victims, authorities said, while nearby Qatar and Bahrain also experienced moderate to heavy rainfall. Torrential rains across the United Arab Emirates prompted flight cancellations, forced schools to shut and brought traffic to a standstill. The heavy rains that caused widespread flooding across the desert nation stemmed partly from cloud seeding.#Dubai pic.twitter.com/tbjFlTL2QQ — Muhammad Tanzeel (@DrTanzeel8) April 17, 2024 In late 2023 Dubai hosted COP28, the United Nations Climate Change Conference, at which climate scientists warned that climate change would make flooding events in some arid parts of the world more severe when they occurred. Image: A partially flooded road in Dubai in another heavy downpour in 2020. Source: Katiekk2 via iStock.
17 Apr 2024, 1:37AM UTC
Melbourne weather strongly out of character
"If you don’t like the Melbourne weather, just wait five minutes." So goes one of many sayings about Melbourne's famously changeable weather, which can swing wildly from minute to minute, hour to hour, and day to day. But for the past two weeks, Melbourne’s weather has been behaving in a decidedly un-Melbourne-like manner. In short, it has been extremely steady and predictable. READ MORE: REMARKABLY UNREMARKABLE WEATHER April 2024 started with a surge of warm air and a top temperature of 28.2°C before dipping to a maximum of just 16.6°C on April 3. That was a taste of the fluctuating Melbourne weather so many people know and love. Or even if we hate it, we love to hate it because it's just so very Melbourne. But since April 3, there has been a remarkably uniform pattern to the daily maximums, which have peaked just below 20°C most days, with a couple of days where the mercury tipped over 20°C. (You can view our daily summaries here) And for the rest of this week, the trend of coolish Melbourne max temps just below 20°C is set to continue with highs of 17°C, 18°C, 18°C, 18°C and 18°C predicted from Wednesday through to Sunday. We should also mention that Adelaide has also seen a month remarkably free of dramatic temperature fluctuations, with a lowest maximum of 18.8°C and a highest max of 22.8°C to date. Why the steady daytime temps? We've written often in recent weeks about the influence of the persistent blocking highs centred south of Australia. These systems continue to prevent much-needed rain-bearing cold fronts from reaching southwest WA, where a record-breaking dry spell continues, and they also tend to bring stable weather to Victoria and South Australia. We could literally pick the synoptic chart from almost any day this month to illustrate this situation and Wednesday's chart will do nicely. That strong high centred south of the Bight is delivering generally fine weather to almost the entire country. It’s also pushing southerly winds the way of Adelaide and Melbourne which explains why average max temps for both cities are ever so slightly down on average for April 2024 to date. Only very light showers are affecting Australia's southern coastline so in both Melbourne and Adelaide, you can expect cool but stable conditions for the rest of the week. If you're a Melbourne or Adelaide local, enjoy the current lack of uncertainty in the weather! As we all know, it's certain not to stay that way.
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.
