It’s gone haywire here in Newcastle the last 2 weeks. We’ve had
300 ml of rain (floods in some areas)
4 days with thunderstorms
3 days of 37+ temperatures
There’s only been maybe 2 days in that time that I would call idyllic summer weather ie. somewhere around 28 degrees without rain/storms and without too much humidity.
Send some of the rain to Tassie! We have no rain, the dams are dry and our power storage is down to about 21% which is a bit of an issue at the moment as Basslink, the power cable running across Bass Strait for exporting and importing power to the National Grid failed just before Christmas and they announced the other day it won’t be fixed until mid-March so we have no way of importing any more power. They reckon that storages could get down to 14%. We have a gas fired power station which they are expecting to fire up in an emergency if they need to. Would be good if the Greenies didn’t complain about all the wind farms, they’re great.
It’s currently 26.2°C at 10:00 here in Melbourne - we’re meant to get down to 19°C, don’t know if it’ll happen exactly. Not looking forward to the heat coming up, though.
Forecast rain for Tasmania hasn’t eventuated which is meaning the current fire situation is getting much worse. Here in Devonport, we’ve had 4 days filled with smoke everywhere despite being nowhere near the fires. Sometimes it’s so thick you can’t see the end of the street. I’ve never seen anything like it and it makes it hard to determine if a blaze has broken out nearby.
The TFS today took the unprecedented step of issuing a total fire ban for the entire state for 4 days from midnight tonight until midnight Wednesday morning which will also cover Australia Day. There’s around 80 blazes around the state and I reckon the state has had at least a dozen total fire bans with them starting in September or October for the Southern district during a sudden burst of heat and wind which I think was the earliest they’ve ever issued one. They were mostly for the south of the state and then the south and the north but this week the bans have mostly been for the north and north-west which despite being green in a few places is burning very, very quickly.
Next few days here in Brisbane,afternoon thunderstorms,temperatures 33-34 degrees,remember we have the high humidity to go with it.As I have to work in a non-air conditioned workplace with huge ovens ,I really feel uncomfortable ,we only have large industrial fans but they’re useless on days like this.
Hurry up winter!
Yes!! The weather’s horrible! Had a cold (warm) shower jump out and I’m already sweating really! I need a\c in my room the ceiling fans useless, but atleasts it’s something.
Oh dear.
And I thought that Sydney had it bad with minimum temperatures lucky to dip under 20 degrees this past week or so!
I think I’m the only one on the forums who prefers warmer weather, I find cold weather particularly depressing!
We finally got some rain… lots of it. Flash flooding in a number of centres across Tasmania and finally some falls on some of the fires to help with those battles. Where I am we’ve had 35mm today (rare to get that much in a 24 hour period at any time) but places around Launceston are into the 70mm+ range. Over the next couple of days they’re predicting falls of 100mm+ as being possible.
Here’s hoping it lands in the right areas and without the thunderstorms we had the other week and today which are triggering more of the fires. I’m pretty sure we have all states and territories except the NT represented now fighting the fires here and we have a few from New Zealand too. Read an article today that many of the areas burning will never grow back, they are species of trees which haven’t evolved to recover from a fire cycle so once they’re gone, that’s it.
It’s worse up here in Townsville at the moment.
It’s 11:30pm at night right now and it’s only just dropped below 30° with humidity currently at 75%.
The water in the shower on the cold tap is no longer cold at all.
You basically get a hot shower or a very hot shower, that’s it.
Nope I could live in 30+ degree days forever
Very unseasonal weather across VIC, TAS & SA.
Been copping these upper troughs with lots of humidity, rain and severe storms.
Usually very hot, dry and sunny over the Aus Open tennis period. But after Day 3, it’s been feeling more like QLD!
Summer weather returns next week 
Big band of rain/storms rolling over Melbourne now into the night (from the trough that Sydney got on Sunday arvo).
Meanwhile up here in QLD, we’re getting “very hot, humid and sunny”.
We are in dire need of some rain up here.
Last year we only had about 30% of our average rainfall for the entire year.
We’re in the middle of the wet season in the tropics now and for January we’ve had less rain than Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Darwin, with only around 40mm recorded (average is around 300mm for this time of year).
The city’s water supply Ross River Dam is at 21% and is forecast to be empty by July if we don’t get any rain soon.
There’s a backup water supply down south at the Burdekin Dam, but even it is only on 30% and is expected to be empty by September, even without Townsville taking any water out of it.
We need a good 200+mm over the next month up here or we’re going to run out of water.
Can we send some of our rain up your way while we take some of your dry weather? 
I don’t think a single person in North Queensland would complain with that swap!
When is the QLD cyclone season? Anywhere from now or is it usually different to WA and/or the top-end?
I mean talk about strange, Melbourne & Adelaide already had multiple heatwaves and 40-43 degree days BEFORE Christmas!
I remember Day 1 of October, there was that fire emergency north of Melbourne, kicking of a way too early VIC fire (and indeed Australia) fire season…
If I’m not mistaken, the QLD cyclone season runs from November to April and I’d imagine that it’s the same (or similar) in the Northern Territory and the North of Western Australia.
Yeah, that’s correct.
It’s November to April in QLD, NT and WA.
The last month or so, the weather has been much more “tropical” in the Sydney basin, with a lot of rain and frequent storms, compared to Nth Qld it’s been pretty much the opposite.
What’s going on here?
Weather ain’t weather anymore 
Devonport came close to setting the record for their wettest day ever on Friday with us just falling 9mm short of the 96mm record. We also nearly set the record for the wettest January falling about 12mm short with pretty much only 2 days rain.
One place on the East Coast copped over 500mm of rain over the few days the low was passing through. Swansea on the East Coast was also flooding (haha get it) social media earlier in the week for this photo. Surprisingly on the weekend more areas were added to the list of towns with water restrictions. No idea yet how much has flowed through to our hydro storages while Basslink is still broken.
