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A tropical low is bringing rain & gusty winds to WA's Pilbara & Gascoyne. Cool S'ly winds behind a low are generating showers in VIC, TAS & the NSW coast, while moist winds bring the odd shower to the SA & WA southern coasts. Showers in north QLD in unstable air.
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Today, 1:14AM UTC
Gale force winds lashing the Pilbara
Ex-Tropical Cylone Olga is edging ever so slightly closer to the Pilbara on Wednesday, bringing damaging winds and rain to the far western Pilbara and its islands. Ex-Tropical Cyclone Olga is currently about 200kmh northwest of Karratha on Wednesday morning, with the satellite image below showing thick cloud and lightning offshore. Image: Himawari- 9 satellite image at 7:50am AWST on Wednesday, April 10. The Islands off the Burrup Peninsula have seen gale force winds early Wednesday morning, with Varanus Island recording sustained winds of 72km/h and an 87km/h wind gust at 2am. Legendre Island’s sustained winds reached 83km/h at around 5:30am, with gusts reaching 102km/h. The Bureau’s track map below shows ex-Tropical Cyclone Olga moving to the southwest and coming close to the Peninsula in the next 48 hours, but not crossing it. Image: Ex- Tropical Cyclone Olga track map issued at 2:39am AWST on Wednesday, April 10. While ex-Tropical Cyclone Olga will continue to weaken and is unlikely to directly hit the Pilbara coast, damaging winds could continue over the Burrup Peninsula and adjacent Islands, extending to Dampier and Karratha during Wednesday morning. Damaging winds averaging 60 to 70km/h, with gusts peaking at around 100km/h are possible in this region in the morning before easing below damaging strength in the afternoon. The map below shows one model forecast wind gusts early and late Wednesday morning, with the strongest winds over the ocean and over the islands. Image: Instantaneous wind gusts at 8am (top) and 11am (bottom) AWST on Wednesday, April 10, according to the ECMWF model Thick cloud and rain is streaming into the region on Wednesday morning and will continue in the next 48 hours. Heavy rainfall is possible along the coastal fringe but is dependent on the movement of remnants of Olga. The map below shows the accumulated rainfall forecast by two different computer models to late Friday, April 12. Image: Accumulated rainfall forecast to 11am AWST on Friday, April 12, according to ECMWF (top) and Access-G (bottom). You can see in the graphics above that there is still some uncertainty with regards to how much rain will fall in the Pilbara and Gascoyne districts in the coming days, due to the two different models’ positions of ex- Tropical Cyclone Olga. Thunderstorms near the coast may further increase wind gusts and bring heavy rainfall in the next few days. The rainfall will then extend towards Esperance later in the week, missing the dry southwest, including Perth. We will be watching ex-Tropical Cyclone Olga’s track closely in the coming days, and you can keep an eye out for the latest warnings here.
Today, 1:09AM UTC
Nine metre waves and 100 km/h winds hit NSW
A powerful burst of southerly winds is causing massive waves to batter NSW beaches today, with warnings in place for damaging surf in some areas. A deepening low pressure system over the Tasman Sea caused a blustery southerly change to move up the NSW coast on Tuesday. These cool southerly winds have strengthened further on Wednesday morning, causing damaging gusts and huge waves on the NSW coast. Image: Composite satellite and modelled wind at 10am AEST on Wednesday. A wave rider buoy located off the coast of Sydney’s Northern Beaches recorded maximum wave height of around nine metres on Wednesday morning. This is the second time in five days waves have reached this high near Sydney, following a similar surge of swell on the weekend. Image: Wave height observations off the coast of Sydney’s Northern Beaches over the last few days. Source: Manly Hydraulics On land, wind gusts reached 102 km/h at Wattamolla and 78 km/h on Sydney Harbour in the early hours of Wednesday morning. Blustery winds and large waves will continue to affect some central and northern parts of the NSW coast on Wednesday, although wind will gradually ease into the afternoon and evening. As of 11am AEST, a severe weather warning was in place for damaging surf along the coast between Seal Rocks and Broken Bay.
Today, 12:35AM UTC
Autumn chill spreads north
It was a cold morning across southeastern Australia as you'd expect after the passage of an autumn cold front, with subzero readings in three states. Australia's highest weather station near the top of the Kosciuszko chairlift at Thredbo recorded 25 consecutive hours of subzero temperatures from 7 am Tuesday to 8 am Wednesday, as well as Australia's lowest minimum on Wednesday morning. Subzero readings occurred in three states (including the ACT), with the lowest being: NSW: Thredbo Top Station –2.7 °C VIC: Mt Hotham –1.9°C ACT: Mt Ginini –1.8°C No subzero temps were recorded in Tasmania, although a couple of locations came very close including Fingal in the state's northeast. But the autumn chill wasn't just restricted to the mountains or the southern states, with cool overnight temps spreading northwards as far as Queensland and northern SA. It's all thanks to the cool Southern Ocean airmass circulating around the strong high pressure system centred southwest of Perth, which is illustrated on the chart above. Numerous locations in inland southern Queensland had single-digit minimum temps and while that is nothing too dramatic for April, the apparent or "feels like" temps would have made life uncomfortable for anyone with an early start. For example, Toowoomba's official minimum was 7.7°C which was the coldest night of the year to date by almost 7 degrees, but the "feels like" temp around the same time with moderate southwesterly winds blowing was just 3°C, making it seem all the colder. Cool minimums can be expected to continue throughout the working week in most of the places mentioned, as that stubborn high pressure system is not going anywhere in a hurry.
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.