I used to work with someone a bit older than me (so mid-late 50s) and he said he loved living in Darwin, even though he grew up in Adelaide (where he had to move back to for a while for family reasons).. he said he’d move back to Darwin if he could, he still loved that kind of weather.
The cousin I have in Cairns, also lived in Darwin when he was in his early 20s, he only lasted 18 months before moving to Cairns, he said he ‘couldn’t take another Darwin summer’ (those were his exact words).
Funny how we are all different like that.. but life would be boring if we were all the same and liked the same things!
Just approaching the baker’s dozen of years now. The first summer was a shock (I moved up in January which was a terrible idea but worked for work mainly) and reckon it got easier after a year or two, but then harder again. The last few summers have been a real slog
So normally in winter, if the SAM is negative it means that there is an increase chance of rainfall for the southern states, is that the same for summer?
Negative SAM in summer brings wind and heat to NSW and QLD, occasional snowfall to the Alps and windy, cold and wet for western TAS. That’s basically what we’ve seen since September. The only regions that are reliably wetter are western TAS and maybe far SW VIC. We have been lucky that the fronts have peaked over us, giving Victoria and SA half decent rain and dribs and drabs as far east as Canberra. If the fronts peaked over WA instead it would have been a whole lot worse.
Saturday may be a key day for bushfire danger in NSW. I am hoping that the SAM has bottomed now and we start moving back toward more typical summer weather (easterlies). NOAA and BOM both suggest a return to neutral after Christmas, here’s hoping. The lead up to Christmas may be a testy period for those in eastern Aus.
I swear Northern NSW Weather works mysteriously.. Legit is 23°c, got a ‘storm’ on top of us. only rain. Had wind prior to the storms arrival. Just 50km West, small town getting battered with hail. Again I call this "‘The Clarence Valley Dome”
UPDATE: I check the radar again, Looks like a darn hook echo formed over Jackadgery… Got some thunder here rn.
It never ends in Northern NSW. The chaos never ends
[New research by Charles Sturt University’s Professor Clive Hamilton] found that people who live in NSW, Brisbane, and regional Queensland are more likely than others to be driven to leave due to climate, and that 41 per cent named Tasmania as the state they thought would be safest in a warming climate, far ahead of other states.
ABS data shows that Tasmania’s population only grew by 1200 in the 12 months from June 30, 2024.
With the new Macquarie Point stadium in Hobart given the green light by state parliament, there will be more people moving to Tasmania in the coming years, most of whom will be involved in the design and/or construction of the structure.
Bone dry down here for the rest of 2025. Thankfully we got a bit of useful rain over the past few days which is better than nothing. The negative SAM/SSW influence is still dominating our weather in the south, with snow even predicted for Tassie on Christmas Eve.
Hopefully the tropics start firing in Jan and we get a little more moisture funnelling down in the second half of summer. It will depend on the SAM though and if it stays negative, will tend to keep that rain up north.
@ElCapitanCranky - I do take your point (climate change affects everywhere) but it’s definitely hitting harder and earlier in NSW and QLD than elsewhere. Tassie, southern VIC and southern SA have a bit more of a buffer than elsewhere because of the moderating effect of the Southern Ocean. Parts of that have barely warmed, whilst the Tasman Sea is one of the fastest warming bodies of water on the planet. This is the culprit behind most of the major flooding events in eastern NSW and SE QLD in recent years, along with a generally positive SAM that has kept easterly winds going (this has changed this spring/summer due to the SSW, but generally positive SAM is another fingerprint of CC).
The contrast between the cold Southern Ocean and the boiling hot Tasman has also driven a lot of severe storms over SE NSW in recent summers. Not this summer so far, and that’s down to an unusually strong Southern Ocean (dry westerly) influence due to the SSW. NSW and QLD get the worst of both worlds: flooding in positive SAM due to the boiling Tasman, and bushfires in negative SAM due to the westerlies.
Yep, it’s NE NSW and SEQ’s turn to sizzle. Mind you, Western Sydney still easily outdoes Brisbane in terms of heat severity in peak summer; 40C with a DP of 20 or more has been recorded quite often at Penrith. Ipswich would be similar at times but even there doesn’t reach the extremes of Penrith most of the time. Brisbane’s period of heat lasts longer though, but nowadays there’s not much in it.
