Climate, Weather and Emergencies

Awful Heatwave coming up for Perth.

Sunday 40C
Monday 41C
Tuesday 39C
Wednesday 39C
Thursday 39C

No doubt I think Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday will get above 40C

If I can give one piece of advice … Never EVER EVER EVER move to the tropics.

We’re having a heatwave here in Townsville at the moment.
But it’s worse than a normal heatwave you’d get down south, because it’s very humid to go with it.

Minimum temperature overnight last night was 30°C, and then we had a maximum today of 38°C, all with high humidity.

The load on the electricity grid has been so extreme that there have been brownouts across the city last night and today.

Currently it’s 10:45pm local time and it’s still 32°C with 70% humidity.

That’s awful…

It’s humid enough down here in Newcastle, with daytime max temps around 29 and 70% humidity.

Overnights are a still humid 21-22 degrees.

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20 degree minimums are bad enough, I couldn’t imagine having to sleep in 30 degree temperatures especially without an air-conditioner!

That said, Sydney is supposed to get a very sickly 24 degree minimum temperature (in both the City & West, I might add - Newcastle will probably be the same if not a degree or so warmer) next Thursday if the forecast shown on Nine News Sydney tonight is anything to go by. Not looking forward to that! :scream:

After having quite a coolish month or so Melbourne hit 40 degrees today and will only drop down to 22 tonight.

And interestingly, tomorrow Perth will be the coolest main city in the mainland!

At last we are having cooler days in Brisbane, less than 30 degrees, I’ve just returned from 3 days up in Townsville visiting friends and it felt like summer up there

What is going on with this wind in Melbourne? Wowzers!

Just had a look at the observations, that’s nothing! Tassie is still cleaning up after last night, thankfully the rain and the wind seem to have disappeared for now. The winds started around yesterday afternoon and went all through the night causing power outages for around 15000 people. Devonport and Burnie cities both got over 100km wind gusts and a number of other places.

Hopefully the Hydro dams have gone up too, they went up 0.3% which is the first rise in about 8 months and since they’re at their critically low levels and we still have no Basslink operating the threat of power rationing was coming closer.

A number of vehicles were damaged coming into Devonport on last night’s Spirit of Tasmania crossing of Bass Strait due to the winds and stormy conditions.

Not a sniff of that front up here as its being “squeezed” to the south. I would dearly love some of the cool air if not the wind. Still waiting for day temps to drop below 25C in coastal NSW, though it’s been abnormally warm everywhere except Perth so far this year.

The Tassie climate is great though, the wind is my one reservation. I’d rather put up with it than our heat and humidity which is occupying an ever increasing portion of the year.

[quote=“dxnerd, post:50, topic:199”]
Still waiting for day temps to drop below 25C in coastal NSW, though it’s been abnormally warm everywhere except Perth so far this year.[/quote]

Indeed. In fact, for each month since the beginning of this year, Perth hasn’t been more than 1’C above the average maximum temp, whereas most other capitals, particularly Canberra & Hobart, are well above the monthly average. On top of that, Hobart has had its warmest April on record.

I’m with you on this. After this long summer that we had, I wish I wasn’t still living in Sydney, because its climate is becoming more & more like a slightly milder version of Brisbane every year.

Of the two biggest cities, despite being fairly cold in winter as well as being more prone to extreme heat in summer, Melbourne would generally have a more favourable climate than Sydney, mainly due to the fact that it’s not as humid on average compared to the latter.

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It wasn’t nothing… and its not a competition between states either. Just cos Tassie had some wild weather as well doesn’t disregard the fact that we had crazy winds all day yesterday in Melbourne (that peaked at 90-110km/h) which caused a lot of damage.

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Something has to happen in Tasmania at some point, though.

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Apologies there is no sarcasm emoticon.

Weather wise - there’s plenty happening in Tasmania you can live in the one spot and in one year get 40 degree temperatures, snowfalls, cyclone force storms or raging bushfires. Not many places in Australia can claim all of those, sometimes you can even get them in one weekend.

Severe flooding is occurring across the North of Tasmania over the past couple of days and continuing into tonight. Yesterday Latrobe on the North West Coast went under and there were many bridges and roadways washed away. One trucking business in Burnie has suffered a damage bill of $5 million and the Spirit of Tasmania is unable to sail until further notice as the Port of Devonport is closed to all commercial shipping since yesterday. I’m not sure why though, I drove past yesterday and only saw half a dozen logs (and full trees), some livestock and a couple of yachts floating up the river. There’s been lots of videos around too of the marina actually breaking away and disappearing up the river, with half a dozen yachts running into the side of the Spirit too.

Tonight, Launceston remains on high flood watch with some major inner-city suburbs evacuated and the last of the flood gates installed across some roads ready for flooding from the early hours of the morning. Invermay is where Aurora Stadium is located and is going to be in trouble if the gates don’t work. The river levels across all the river systems have been higher than those recorded in the 1929 floods which devastated Launceston. Yesterday was also an unprecedented situation where all 5 major river systems in the North and the Derwent river in the south were all on Major Flood Warnings.

Many roads I travel regularly have simply disappeared and it’s going to take a while to get things repaired. For a state that was so dry for so long and in the middle of a power crisis with low Hydro storage levels, last month changed that (the dams went from 12% full to 23% and supplying 100% of our power needs) to now having many spilling.

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That cold front from down south has made its way across North QLD this afternoon.

Raining, very windy and a chilly “feels like” of 4 in Townsville.

While not cold by most standards, it’s pretty unusual for this part of the country, but SO SO NICE!

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The folks of Ayr , near Townsville were ropable today with that cold front from down south finally arriving in NQ today.

On a side note, Townsville recorded our coldest July day on record today, reaching a max of 15, which is pretty unusual for this far north.

I love colder weather, so I thought it was marvellous today, but many locals I saw looked like they were off to the snow, the way they were dressed.

Note, when I say today, I mean Friday :stuck_out_tongue:

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Level 3 water restrictions were put in force for Townsville today as the city’s dam has now dropped to 19% capacity after 2 years of very below average rainfall.

If we dont get any decent rain soon, the council will begin pumping water from the dam at Ayr, at a cost of $30,000 per day. Townsville is given an allocation of 2 months of emergency water from Ayr in the event that our dam levels fall too low.

Oh geez. With forecasters predicting an upcoming La Nina, hopefully you guys get some decent rain!

Here in Sydney though, I must say that after all the rain, cold temperatures (well, for our standards anyway) and talk of East Coast Lows over the last two months it is rather nice to see a sign that Spring is in sight with this prolonged period of sunshine we’re getting for the next week or so.

Sydney actually reached 25.2 degrees today, which is either absolutely lovely or too warm too soon depending on your point of view! Of course it’ll cool down tomorrow, but at least it’s staying dry and sunny with some more warmer weather coming early next week.