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A few showers over QLD's far north and the NT's northeast Top End in humid onshore winds. Showers over the coasts of eastern Qld, northeast NSW and southwest WA in moist southeasterly winds around highs. High pressure maintains dry conditions elsewhere.
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Today, 6:32AM UTC
Anzac Day dawn service weather around Australia
Anzac Day is this Thursday, so we thought we’d give you a brief weather forecast for each capital city for those attending the dawn service. And for those who live outside the capitals, just type your postcode into the search bar on the Weatherzone website or app for your local forecast. The big picture Overall, this is going to be a dry week for most parts of Australia. The main weather action is midweek in the southeast of the country, as you can see on Wednesday's synoptic chart below, with a cold front whipping through Tasmania and Victoria. This is what you could call a classic autumn cold front, meaning the showers, cold air and blustery winds won't penetrate as far north as they often do in winter. But the front will still drag enough cool air northwards to make Thursday morning chilly for anyone attending a dawn service anywhere in southeastern Australia, Tasmania included. Melbourne Melbourne can expect a minimum of 10°C and a maximum of 16°C on Anzac Day but beware, that 10-degree temperature around dawn will feel a whole lot colder with westerly winds and occasional showers. Sydney Sydney will have mild minimums and a top in the high 20s on Wednesday, but cooler air will arrive overnight, making the Anzac Day minimum of 15°C feel a lot cooler in the southwesterly winds, on the way to a max of 22°C. At least it should be dry. Brisbane Brisbane could just about be the pick of the capitals on Anzac Day, with a min of 17°C, a max of 27°C, clear skies and light winds. Canberra Locals will tell you that Canberra always has its first frost a week either side of Anzac Day, and it came on cue this Monday morning. Anzac Day will come close again, with a minimum of 4°C on the way to a top of 19, so rug up if you’re attending the Anzac Day Dawn Service at the Australian War Memorial. Image: It's always chilly on Anzac Day morning at the Australian War Memorial In Canberra. Source: iStock. Perth Perth locals would love nothing more than an absolute deluge any day of the week right now, even on Anzac Day. You won’t be surprised to learn it's not coming this Thursday or any time in at least the next week. Expect clear skies and a minimum of 12°C on the way to a top of 25°C. Adelaide The cold front will clip Adelaide on Tuesday afternoon, dropping max temps by seven or eight degrees between the first half and the second half of the working week. There's not much rain potential, though, and Anzac Day has only a very slight chance of a shower, with a minimum of 10°C and a max of 19°C. Hobart As we told you last week, the whole of Tasmania has been very dry to date in 2024, and while Wednesday looks showery for Hobart, Anzac Day should see a return to cool but mostly dry conditions with a minimum of 9°C and a top of 15°C. Winds should be blustery even around dawn, so wear an extra layer. Darwin The NT capital is looking at a range of 25°C to 35°C. Did you expect anything different? Lest we forget.
Today, 2:19AM UTC
Coldest April night in 25 years for SA towns
Three South Australian towns have shivered through their coldest April night in 25 years as a near-stationary high pressure system centred over southeastern Australia made for windless, chilly nights over the weekend and into Monday morning. The three locations with the 25-year April lows were: Edithburg, which got down to an impressively low minimum of 5.8°C for a coastal town on the Yorke Peninsula. Parafield Airport, which is in the north of the Adelaide metropolitan area, so its low of 2.5°C tells you that it was a frigid old night in the city, even though the official minimum at the West Terrace weather station was 6.3°C. Kingscote Airport, which is located just far enough inland from the seaside town of Kingscote (the largest settlement on Kangaroo Island) to negate the full effect of the ocean's warmth. It dropped to 1.4°C. None of these readings were the coldest in the state to 9 am Monday. That title goes to Keith in the state's Upper South East forecast district, where frost warnings were in place as Weatherzone meteorologist Quincy Tut reported on Sunday, and with good reason. The town of Keith got down to –1°C this Monday morning, its coldest April reading in 11 years and its second subzero night on the trot. Image: Live temps at 6 am Monday, April 22 across SE Australia. You can see the minus one at Keith in SA, just west of the Vic border. The –1°C reading at Keith wasn't quite the coldest overnight temperature anywhere in Australia. That was –1.3°C at Cooma Airport, east of the Snowy Mountains. In autumn and winter, Cooma and even Canberra sometimes get colder than locations up in the mountains. When that happens, it’s usually due to winds at higher altitudes, and that's what happened last night, with Perisher Valley dropping to zero by 9 pm in still conditions before warming slightly as a light breeze kicked in. The same effect occurred in Victoria, with temperatures plummeting perilously close to zero in the Wimmera and Mallee districts of the state's west, while the lowest in the Victorian Alps was a relatively mild 4.4°C at Mt Hotham. Several Tasmanian locations came close to zero overnight, but none quite reached the magic freezing mark, and while we have no statistics on this, we'd imagine it's quite rare for the lowest minimum in South Australia to fall below the coldest recorded low temp in Tasmania. South Australians can expect a warm day today and a warmer Monday night ahead of a cold front extending across the south of the state on Tuesday.
21 Apr 2024, 4:01AM UTC
Canberra's first sub-zero of the year
Wintry air descended across the southeast in the early hours of Sunday morning, bringing sub-zero temperatures to parts of the ACT and NSW, including Canberra. Just after 6:30am, the nation's capital dropped to –0.1ºC, which was not only its coldest temperature since October 2023, but also its first sub-zero temperature of 2024. Frost warnings were also in place across Victoria's Wimmera and South Australia's Upper South East. Images: Observed temperature readings (top) and wind speeds (bottom) at 6:45am AEST (6:15am ACST) on Sunday, April 21st. Skies cleared and winds stood near-stationary under a strong high pressure ridge, allowing surface warmth to radiate upwards, well into the atmosphere. Figure: A broad high pressure cell extending across the southeast, centred over SA's Upper South East on Sunday morning. Not far from the capital, Cooma Airport in NSW dropped to –3.6ºC after 5am, making it the coldest April temperature since 2021 and the coldest temperature in any month since October 2023. Elsewhere, a number of locations recorded their coldest April mornings in years, including: Deniliquin Airport (NSW): 1.8ºC, lowest since 2012 Cape Borda (SA): 6.6ºC, lowest since 2008 Adelaide Airport (SA): 5.4ºC, lowest since 2002 Edithburgh (SA): 3.8ºC, lowest since 2000 Ceduna (SA): 0.9ºC, lowest since 1999 Whilst high pressure and clearer skies can bring cold mornings, they can also bring warmer days. On Monday, several of these very same locations are expected to exceed monthly averages. Ceduna (SA): 28ºC (about 4ºC above average) Canberra (ACT): 23ºC (about 2ºC above average) Adelaide (SA): 24ºC (about 1ºC above average) To know when you can expect the next bouts of cold, hot, wet and dry weather, keep up to date with the latest forecasts here and check the latest warnings here.
Weather in Business
18 Apr 2024, 3:20AM UTC
Generation gone with the wind
A weeklong stretch of low wind power was broken on Wednesday evening, as a weak cold front marched across southern Australia. The chart below shows that the National Electricity Market (NEM) has endured a weeklong stretch of low wind generation, with wind power providing around 6% of the NEM’s electricity, down from last year’s average of 13.1% (Mon, April 15 to Wed, April 17). The daily wind generation has been under 41 GWh/day for the last seven days leading up to Thursday, April 18. The calmest winds occurred on Sunday, April 14 with only 24 GWh/day produced or 4.6% of grid demand. To put this in perspective, the average daily wind generation during the last year up to Wednesday, April 17, 2024, was 71 GWh/day, according to data from the open NEM. This prolonged period of low wind was caused by blocking high pressure systems sitting over southern Australia, forcing cold fronts or strong wind further south. The image below shows the Mean Sea Level Pressure chart on the calmest day, Sunday, April 14, with high pressure stubbornly sitting over the southern half of the country. Image: Mean Sea Level Pressure Analysis at 4am AEST on Sunday, April 14. Source: Bureau of Meteorology. As we mentioned earlier today, a positive Southern Annular Mode (SAM) has led to consistent high pressure systems positioned over latitudes well south of Australia during the first three months of the year and during this week. This has kept cold fronts south of the mainland, and even south of Tasmania. READ MORE: WHAT IS THE SAM? The period of light winds ended abruptly on Wednesday evening, with WattClarity reporting that wind production peaking above 3,000 MW at 9:10pm AEST. The increased wind power on Wednesday night, was caused by a couple of factors; A weak cold front swept across the southeast on Wednesday, bringing stronger winds. A very shallow temperature inversion formed in the early evening protecting the surface from the stronger winds, but the wind turbine hub-height (150 metres above the ground) winds remained strong at around 28-38 km/h in SA. Temperature inversions form at night when the ground cools quicker than the air above it, meaning that the temperature increases with height for a thin layer of the atmosphere. During autumn, the temperature inversions are commonly shallow meaning that while the wind could be weak at the surface, the hub heights could continue to experience strong winds. A similar phenomenon could happen again tonight across southern Australia, with another cold front passing across the south. Looking ahead, light winds are expected to continue from Friday as a stubborn high-pressure system builds over the Bight until early to mid-next week.
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.
