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A few showers & the odd storm over QLD's far north and the NT's eastern Top End in southeasterly winds. A westerly airstream brings gusty showers to southern Vic and western Tas. Drier & settled elsewhere under a broad area of high pressure.
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Today, 3:00AM UTC
Rainfall to soak some parched areas of WA
Rain will soak parts of WA over the coming week, although forecast models are struggling to agree on whether this burst of wet weather will bring much-needed rain to parched Perth. This rainfall will be caused by a low pressure trough extending from the Kimberley down to southwestern WA from late Thursday, with a low pressure system developing within it early to mid-next week. The images below shows that widespread rainfall of between 15 to 30mm is forecast in the week across western and southern WA, with isolated falls of between 40 to 60mm in the Gascoyne and Goldfields districts. Image: Accumulated rainfall to 8pm AWST on Thursday, May 2, according to Access (top) and ECMWF (bottom) You can see there is still some uncertainty about where and how much rainfall will fall in these areas late this week and early next week, with one model placing rain over Perth and the other predicting it will completely miss the city altogether. The heaviest rainfall days are likely to be Friday and mid next week when the low pressure system develops. The maps below show that the rainfall forecast varies on Friday between computer models, but the highest totals should develop over the Gascoyne and Goldfields. Images: Accumulated rainfall forecast for the 24 hours leading up to 11pm WST Friday, April 26, according to ECMWF (top) and Access (bottom). Rain will ease on Saturday before developing across the far southwest on Sunday, as a cold front clips the district. Rain will intensify early to mid-next week, with the largest totals expected on Tuesday, April 30 across western and southern WA, possibly hitting parched Perth. Accumulated rainfall forecast for the 24 hours leading up to 11pm WST Tuesday, April 30, according to Access (bottom) and ECMWF (top). Heavy falls of 20mm across three hourly totals is possible on Friday and again mid next week in the Gascoyne and Goldfields, possibly impacting mine operations in this region. While this week's rain is welcome, it's unlikely to be drought-breaking across the bone-dry region. The map below shows that areas of the southwest have experienced the lowest rainfall on record during the last eight months. Image: rainfall deficiencies for 8 months between August 1 2023 and March 31 2024, source: Bureau of Meteorology. The state’s southwest remains abnormally dry, with hardly any rainfall registered in the gauges in March. Image: WA rainfall deciles in March 2024, Source: Bureau of Meteorology In the map above you can see March was a wet month for large areas of WA with several sites recording the highest daily rainfall on record. Much of this rainfall fell between the 9th and 13th of March across central and southeastern parts of the state after a slow-moving trough and tropical moisture brought heavy rain and thunderstorms. Looking ahead, there are signs of a rain-bearing cold front late next week, with the potential to hit Perth. Over the coming months, average to below-average rainfall is forecast across southern WA, but there is potential for locally above-average rain in winter.
Today, 12:33AM UTC
Tassie snow, Melbourne temps go low
Snow has fallen in Tasmania, while Melbourne has experienced a dramatic temperature drop as a cold front whipped through Tasmania and southern Victoria overnight. This was the Wednesday morning scene on the slopes of Ben Lomond, Tasmania's only commercial ski resort, about an hour out of Launceston. Not enough snow for skiing, but the cafe was open for anyone venturing up there to throw a snowball. Image: Source: Benlomondalpineresort.com.au. Interestingly, there was much lighter snow recorded on kunanyi/Mt Wellington above Hobart, where most of the moisture fell as rain before colder air arrived. Ben Lomond also did better out of this system than southern Tasmania mountains as there were heavier precipitation totals overall in the northeast of state, as the chart below shows. Image: Ben Lomond is located near the green dots in the state’s northeast. Source: BoM. Meanwhile Melbourne experienced a dramatic temperature drop late on Tuesday evening, after Tuesday was its warmest day since April 1, 2024 with a top of 25.3°C. The orange line on the chart below illustrates that, with Wednesday's maximum likely to be around nine or 10 degrees cooler than Tuesday's. Because this cold front only just clipped the southern tip of mainland Australia, you won’t see showers or cold maximum temps recorded too far north of southern Vic this Wednesday. For example, Canberra will often have a maximum in single digits on midwinter days when cold fronts push northwards across SE Australia, but today, the national capital is heading for 21°C and had already passed 19°C just after 10 am. There's not much snow for the mainland mountains either. Mainland Australia’s most southerly ski resort Mt Baw Baw received 25.4 mm of rain to 9 am, much of it in the early morning when temps were around one or two degrees, which was just a little too warm for snow. A few flakes may fall further north at the higher Victorian resorts during the day, but it probably won’t be enough to turn the ground white. READ MORE: DEVILISHLY DRY IN TASMANIA Meanwhile cooler, dryer air in the wake of this front will push its way across the southeast, making for a string of cold nights ahead, including a chilly start to Anzac Day for those attending the dawn service. The mercury in Sydney should reach the mid-twenties on Wednesday, especially if the current high cloud clears, with a temperature drop in the afternoon as cooler southerly winds arrive.
23 Apr 2024, 6:40AM UTC
Australia's tropical cyclone season coming to an end
The 2023-24 Australian tropical cyclone season is almost over and while it was a quiet season based on overall numbers, some of the landfalling systems had a big impact. The Australian tropical cyclone season officially runs from November until April. During this time, we usually see an average of about 9 to 10 tropical cyclones in Australia’s area of responsibility. Only eight named tropical cyclones formed or moved into the Australian region during the 2023-24 season, making this a below-average season based on the overall number. However, with four tropical cyclones making landfall over Australia, this has still been an active season based on impacts, particularly for Queensland. The eight tropical cyclones in Australia’s area of responsibility this season were: Severe Tropical Cyclone Jasper Severe Tropical Cyclone Anggrek Severe Tropical Cyclone Kirrily Tropical Cyclone Lincoln Severe Tropical Cyclone Neville Severe Tropical Cyclone Megan Severe Tropical Cyclone Olga Tropical Cyclone Paul Of the eight tropical cyclones in the Australian region this season, Jasper, Kirrily, Lincoln and Megan made landfall on the Australian mainland. Images: The eight tropical cyclones in Australia’s area of responsibility during the 2023-24 season. Image credit: NASA Worldview Severe Tropical Cyclone Jasper Jasper was the first tropical cyclone of the 2023-24 season in Australia, forming over the Coral Sea in early December and becoming the earliest category four tropical cyclone in the Australian region since 2005. Tropical Cyclone Jasper made landfall in northern Qld on Wednesday, December 13, 2023, crossing the coast between Port Douglas and Cooktown, in the vicinity of Wujal Wujal, as a category two system. Jasper was the earliest tropical cyclone in the satellite era to make landfall on Australia’s east coast. The remnants of Tropical Cyclone Jasper lingered over northern Qld for a number of days after making landfall, producing around 2 metres of rain in five days. This deluge caused the worst flooding in more than 100 years near Cairns. Severe Tropical Cyclone Kirrily Kirrily was the third tropical cyclone of the season in Australia’s area of responsibility. It formed over the Coral Sea in late January 2024 and peaked at category three strength, before weakening to category two intensity as it crossed the Qld coast to the north of Townsville on January 25. Kirrily lingered over eastern Australia into early February and caused widespread rain in Qld and NSW. The moisture associated with the former tropical cyclone eventfully drifted south and produced a huge cloud band over the Tasman Sea, which extended more than 5000 km from NSW to beyond New Zealand. Tropical Cyclone Lincoln While Lincoln existed only briefly as a tropical cyclone, it was a long-lasting system that delivered rain to a broad area of northern Australia in February. Lincoln became a tropical cyclone over the southwest Gulf of Carpentaria on February 16 shortly before making landfall over the NT’s Carpentaria coast to the east of Port Arthur. After making landfall, Lincoln’s remnant low pressure system traversed the NT and WA’s Kimberley district. This overland journey caused heavy outback rain and flooding, which cut isolated communities and cut off roads, including the Stuart and Great Northern Highways. The low pressure system then went on to bring some welcome rain to the parched Gascoyne region in WA towards the end of February. Severe Tropical Cyclone Megan Megan followed a similar path to Lincoln, forming over the Gulf of Carpentaria in mid-March before crossing the NT’s Carpentaria coast. However, Megan was much stronger than Lincoln at landfall, crossing the coast as a category three severe tropical cyclone. The remnants of Tropical Cyclone Megan caused heavy rain and flooding to extend across the central inland of the NT in the days after it made landfall. Looking ahead, there are no signs of tropical cyclone activity in the Australian region during the remainder of April. While tropical cyclone activity becomes less likely from May onwards, it is possible for systems to develop near Australia outside the official season.
Weather in Business
23 Apr 2024, 12:07AM UTC
Wind returning to southeastern Australia
After a prolonged period of light winds, a surge of powerful winds and cool air will push through southeastern Australia during the next 48 hours. As we wrote about last week the National Electricity Market (NEM) saw very low wind power generation during the seven days leading up to Thursday, April 18, with the daily wind generation having been under 41 GWh/day for this period. Wind power has improved slightly during the past week, with wind power increasing for a few days over last weekend. The chart below shows that the winds across the NEM have already increased in response to a cold front approaching SA and Vic on Tuesday. The increase in wind power is associated with a cold front sweeping across southeastern Australia, after a stubborn high-pressure system forced many cold fronts south for over a week. The map below shows the cold front marching across the Bight, approaching SA on Tuesday morning. You can also see a broad area of speckled cloud in the Bight, which is a tell-tale sign that a large mass of cold polar air has broken away from the Antarctic region and is venturing into the relatively warm mid-latitudes. Image: Himawari-9 satellite image at 9:30am AEST on Tuesday, April 23. Northwesterly winds will continue to strengthen ahead of the cold front on Tuesday in SA and Vic before a strong southwesterly change hits Adelaide on Tuesday afternoon and Melbourne in the evening. The images below show the wind gust forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon. Image: Instantaneous wind gust forecast at 1pm AEST on Tuesday (top) (bottom)and Wednesday, April 23 and 24, according to ECMWF While most of this wind should hit the wind power ‘sweet spot’, cut outs could occur at southeastern Vic and southern NSW wind farms late Tuesday into Wednesday. Generally, cut outs occur when wind speeds exceed 90km/h (25 m/s), which is when the wind turbines are turned off to prevent damage. In the image above you can see the front and associated southerly change moving up the NSW coast on Wednesday, hitting Sydney on Wednesday afternoon. Winds will then become light later this week as another high-pressure system moves into the Bight. Cool change coming Ahead of this change, much of southeastern Australia has experienced pleasant autumnal weather, with Sydney’s temperature for the next two days reaching 27°C. However, there will be a large temperature contrast ahead and behind the cold front in the next few days. The image below shows forecast air temperatures around 1.5km above sea level on Wednesday morning, showing the cool airmass moving over parts of SA, VIC, Tas. Behind the cold front strong southwesterly winds will cause temperatures to plummet to around 2-3°C below average across southern Australia; Melbourne and Adelaide's temperature dropping to around 16-18°C for several days following the front. Hobart’s temperature will drop from 22°C on Tuesday to 15°C on Wednesday. Sydney’s temperature will go from 5°C above average on Wednesday to average on Thursday. The coolest air will move over Tas, bringing snow to the alpine region there. Looking ahead, temperatures will recover later this week ahead of another cold front and burst of wind power early next week.
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.
