Yikes- Brisbane is almost as bad as Sydney in that shot.
@tamago_otoko- I haven’t run A/C either but that’s due to the smoke. I agree that dry heat is much better but as you say it’s abnormal for the subtropics and the environment can’t cope with it- hence the fires. Areas like Canberra don’t suffer as much because the summers there are usually warm and dry.
It was snowing ash a little while ago and it rained burnt leaves last night; I’m quite some distance from the closest fire. The 1994 fires were similar in intensity but that was only 1-2 weeks; the current fire emergency has been going for months in some areas.
we need a good downpour here in Perth, especially in the summer. We only needed 1 rainy day to see us through till the end of autumn and it happened in consecutive years but not this year sadly. As we had over 100ml in just a 24 hour period.
Perth is naturally dry in summer; it has a Mediterranean climate with almost all precipitation in the cooler months. Yes, there is the odd freak storm or cyclone remnant that affects Perth in summer, but most of the time it’s as dry as a bone and the environment is adapted to that.
Sydney and Brisbane have a humid subtropical climate (wet summer, dry winter) so our environment can’t cope with hot, dry summers. The current fires are a result of prolonged drought, but the real kick in the guts has been an anomalously active westerly wind regime which produces nothing but hot and dry conditions on the east coast, whilst VIC and TAS freeze. The pulses of dry air from the continent and the Southern Ocean are totally inhibiting trough formation; the troughs usually produce plenty of storms at this time of year throughout coastal NSW and QLD.
I hope BOM is right when they say that we may have bit of a wet summer or perhaps above average for early in the new year. The forecasters keep saying, I think that the Indian Ocean needs to be warmer for us to get a lot of rain or something along those lines.
The last 2 days this week at work were unbearable,so hot😡.Had to crank up the car air-con driving home,my home air-con has hardly been off this weekend
You’re referring to the Indian Ocean Dipole which is a similar dynamic to El Niño/La Nina. Right now we have a strong positive IOD, which means warmer water near Somalia and cooler water off NW Aus/Indonesia. As you rightly allude to, cooler water inhibits convection and hence rainfall. But the main effect of a positive IOD is actually in SE Australia rather than SW WA; this is because of NW cloud bands that travel from Broome to SE Australia in winter/spring, linking up with frontal systems and producing rainfall. In a positive IOD there are less of these NW cloud bands and this year there have been pretty much none. Conversely there has been record rain near Somalia, near the area of the anomalously warm ocean.
What has made this year particularly grim is that the positive IOD has occurred in conjunction with a negative Southern Annular Mode (SAM); a negative SAM means more westerly winds than normal. When you combine dry conditions with dry westerlies, you get bad fire conditions on the east coast.
The role of climate change in all this is akin to an amplifier on your antenna; the underlying weather ‘signals’ are still there but climate change is boosting them, making things more extreme.
Smoke haze has been much better the last couple of days here in Newcastle. Can actually see some blue sky, clouds and a sun that is yellow instead of orange or red.
Thanks for this explanation, makes a lot of sense of it. I have to admit while I’d studied ENSO and so on years ago I’m not as familiar with SAM, which makes sense of the weird dry westerlies we’ve been having here which as you’ve said are totally inconsistent with the usual East Coast weather patterns.
Today fortunately, despite the haze, is markedly more pleasant with our friend the cooler south-easterly back in town.
You can be forgiven for that as the SAM was poorly understood until recently. Climatologists have only recently linked movements in the SAM with Sudden Stratospheric Warming (SSW) events over Antarctica. An SSW precipitated this long and persistent negative SAM event. What caused this SSW is an open question; some think it’s related to the diminishing ozone hole. The SSW feeds into SAM by disturbing the polar jet stream, displacing it further north and causing the westerlies. The jet is disturbed because there is a reduced temperature gradient between the warmer air over Antarctica and our temperate latitudes.
Bushfire smoke in Sydney at “hazardous” levels. Sydney Ferries suspended due to poor visibility. Smoke alarms are being triggered across the city and forcing evacuations. The fire brigade is attending numerous call outs.
My office building has just had the alarms go off and a fire truck turned up. We just had an announcement that it was a false alarm and to carry on.
Sydney Trains has advised commuters to be patient if fire alarms go off at platforms. If a fire alarm is triggered at a train station, all Opal card readers are made inactive.
The Rural Fire Service headquarters in Homebush in Sydney’s west was also briefly evacuated this morning due to a triggered fire alarm.
At least one office has already been evacuated in North Ryde from The Australian Astronomical Observatory after smoke came into the building and set off the fire alarm.
World Square, in the centre of Sydney, has been particularly affected with the sound of fire alarms ringing throughout the complex.
News.com.au understands officeworkers in the city are being told to go home if they find the smoke, which has seeped into most high-rise building around Sydney, to be too much.
I’m actually wearing a mask inside my office on the 11th floor in Redfern. The smoke has penetrated inside and is creating a haze which I originally thought was a smudge on my glasses. Holy crap this is bad. I thought the other day was bad, but this is BAD. It was around 300 on the AQI last Friday, but today it’s up to 2000! I have NEVER seen pollution this bad in Sydney before.
The smoke has triggered the alarms in our office in the city. Some buildings are being evacuated due to false alarms.
Sydney Ferries have been suspended due to smoke. Ferries between Manly and Circular Quay will be replaced by buses.
Sydney Trains has advised commuters to be patient if fire alarms go off at platforms. If a fire alarm is triggered at a train station, all Opal card readers are made inactive.
