Its been VERY warm in the south east of the country latelyâŚ
Yes, itâs either stinking hot or pouring with rain in Sydney these days. Heating up in Bungendore too this week, but yesterday was our first day above 25 for the warm season. Unfortunately the first 30 is hot on its heels (pardon the pun) on Monday.
Still 6C this morning and only 2C yesterday. At this time of year, youâre in a pullover in the morning and short sleeves by noon.
The anomalous warmth over the east coast is entirely down to the Sudden Stratospheric Warming. Some pundits are calling for its influence to wane next month so hopefully that occurs. We donât want catastrophic rain but that seems to be the norm these days.
I recall seeing on the ABC NSW 7pm weather forecast last night that rainfall for the remainder of the year was predicted to be about average, same with day time temps, but nights are forecast to be slightly warmer than average.
With the changing climate itâs hard to predict what will happen with rainfall; the only thing thatâs reasonably certain is that temperatures will be warmer than average. Increasingly our rain is coming in short bursts rather than broad soaking rain events, so a feast for one location might be a famine only 50 km up the road. Thatâs the case down here; Bungendore is now much drier than Canberra because of greater storm exposure in the latter. Historically the rainfall was a dead heat (Iâve done the maths).
The permanent warm patch of ocean off the Illawarra to Newcastle means that heavy rain events are more likely if conditions suit. Right now the Tasman Sea may as well be theoretical given all the westerlies, but I think this is a temporary anomaly cause by the SSW.
Conditions might rapidly flip to wet as the other climate drivers (IOD and ENSO) are in the wetter phase. That will depend on how the SSW decays.
My family over in the UK are saying that Climate Change seems to be bringing them more warm sunny days while having the opposite effect on Australia, dumping continual rain onto Sydney and destroying the summer paradise status of the Australian climate.
The UK is in a much better position than Australia for sure, though damaging storms are becoming more frequent there as well, particularly in winter. The UK is now seeing significant thunderstorms and rain events in summer too, most likely due to the warming oceans. Of course they are starting from a much lower base than we are (Tasmania excepted).
I still maintain that the best place to be to ride out climate change is the South Island of NZ. Geopolitical risk (wars etc) is obviously lower there than in Europe as well.
Yes, NZ rarely seems to get bitterly cold (except around the ski resorts) or exceedingly hot.
Beta site showing new BOM site that goes live 22 Oct
https://beta.bom.gov.au/?utm_source=legacy&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=launch
I had a play around with it last night. I looks pretty good. Looks like they may be trying to make a pc version of the radar they have in the app.
Depends where you are. Christchurch and Napier/Hastings can cop some hot days in summer because of the Foehn effect (downwind of mountains). Although maxima tend to be in the mid-high 30s rather than 40+ as in Australia. 40C has been recorded several times on the Canterbury Plain, though.
Central Otago (Alexandra, Cromwell) is also consistently warm to hot in summer and very dry. Alexandra only has an annual rainfall of 400 mm, thatâs dry even by Aussie standards. And both places can see -8 and below in winter. In fact, the region does a pretty good impression of Coomaâs climate.
Extreme weather is much rarer on the South Island than in Australia though (apart from winter gales, but you can escape the worst by not living ultra coastal). Itâs the extreme weather thatâs of most concern for habitability.
Melbourne will experience significant winds this Wednesday. Seems to be crossing the area late morning into late evening. SES will be busy looking at some of the numbers coming through.
Yes, awful weather pattern this with non stop gales in the south and severe heat further north. Canberra is getting BOTH the heat and the gales; you can understand why Iâm a bit twitchy with fires.
Awful fire day for the N-S-W corridor (Newcastle-Sydney-Wollongong) on Wednesday with the Fire Behaviour Index currently predicted to be 65, well into the Extreme rating. A month ago it was flooding rain in the same area. If it wasnât for the wet year so far I daresay those rating would be Catastrophic. Reminds me of East Gippsland a couple of years ago with a raging bushfire one week and flood evacuations the next. This âweather whiplashâ affects eastern NSW and far eastern VIC more frequently than in other areas; we have hot ocean on one side (bringing torrential rain) and hot land on the other. Tasmania has neither!
I tend to think a bit the opposite⌠the rain has created new fuel for the fires and itâs dried out enough since for the fires to now take advantage of that.
Fuel moisture would still be there although curing rapidly as you say. There hasnât been a very hot windy day in Sydney as yet to really desiccate things, although itâs been dry. We did have one Catastrophic rating back in 2019 (November); that day itself did not produce any major fires but of course exacerbated the ones that were already burning. Thankfully there are no major blazes at the moment, though Wednesdayâs conditions may propagate any ignitions from Fridayâs storms.
Any subsequent days like Wednesday will push up into the Catastrophic rating unless we get decent rain. For everyoneâs sake I hope this SSW influence wanes in November; conversely, Tasmanians are sick of the windy and/or wet weather.
Iâve just had a look now⌠I agree, looks mostly good, but my main complaint is that when I add a âfavourite locationâ, it replaces all of the capitals that display by default.. Iâd like to be able to add my location as a âninth tileâ on my homepage below the eight currently displayed, but it doesnât seem to let me do that..
I think there still may be a few issues with it. I tried using the new style radar layout and couldnât get it to work.