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Showers & storms in WA's west are due to unstable air. A cool airstream in the wake of a front is bringing gusty showers to TAS & VIC. Showers on the tropical QLD coast in onshore winds. A high is only allowing the odd shower on the NSW coast & keeping much of the remainder dry.
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Today, 3:26AM UTC
More rain and storms for WA
Days of rain and thunder are on the cards for some western and central parts of WA, with the potential for some decent falls in the region. The map below shows showers and thunderstorms approaching the Gascoyne and Upper West districts on Monday morning. Image: Himawari-9 satellite image combined with Weatherzone radar and lightning data, showing three hours of cloud, rain and lightning leading up to 10:20am on Monday, May 13. The thunderstorms and showers are forming in response to an upper-level low moving over the Indian Ocean towards the WA coastline. Image: 500 hPa temperature, wind and height at 11am AWST on Monday, May 13. The largest falls in the coming days are expected in the Gascoyne and Central West districts with widespread totals of 5 to 20mm and isolated areas of 40 to 100mm in the Gascoyne district. Image: Accumulated rainfall forecast for 3 days leading up to 8pm AWST on Wednesday, May 15. Some rain will fall in the southwest, but unfortunately it will be much lighter than up north and certainly won't be drought breaking. The rainfall and storms will impact western Gascoyne and Central West on Monday, before moving further inland on Tuesday as the low moves slowly east. Tuesday looks like the heaviest day, with one model hinting at the potential for 50 to 100mm to fall in a day in the Gascoyne. The thunderstorms and rain will then move into the Southern Interior by Wednesday, before easing later in the week.
Today, 3:03AM UTC
Welcome wet weather in parched western Tasmania this week
Some much-needed rain will fall across western Tasmania this week, soaking parts of the state that have been running more than 200 mm below their average rainfall over the last six months. Rainfall has been lacking in western parts of Tasmania since late last year thanks to a dominance of high pressure systems to the south of Australia. These highs have acted like a shield against rain-bearing cold fronts, starving western Tasmania from its usual pre-winter rainfall. While high pressure and low rainfall are to be expected in Tasmania the warmer months of the year, the last six months have been even drier than usual. In the six months between November 2023 and April 2024, rainfall was more than 100 mm below normal for much of Tasmania and more than 200 mm below average in parts of the state’s west and south. Image: Observed rainfall anomalies between November 1, 2023 and April 20, 2024. Source: Bureau of Meteorology Even Agfest, Tasmania’s 3-day agricultural field day that is synonymous with rain, was a completely dry event this year. Hobart’s cumulative rain between January 1 and April 30 this year was only 35.6 mm, making this the city’s driest start to a year since 1984 and its 4th driest on record, with data available back to 1894. Fortunately, this week will offer a decent bout of wet weather for some western and southern areas in Tasmania. A series of relatively weak cold fronts embedded in a sustained flow of west to southwesterly winds will cause rain every day in Tasmania this week. The heaviest falls will be in the west, which is the region most exposed to these winds, although most of the state has a chance of some wet weather this week. Image: Forecast accumulated rain this week, according to the ECMWF-HRES model. Hobart is not likely to receive heavy rain in this week’s weather pattern, so the state’s capital city will have to wait until late May or June for some decent rainfall.
Today, 1:24AM UTC
Relief ahead for drenched NSW coast
The end is in sight to the relentless soaking on parts of the New South Wales coast, with a period of much drier weather ahead. This will come as exceptionally good news for anyone whose washing has been accumulating in great piles in homes across Sydney as well as coastal areas within a few hours of the city – and especially the South Coast. To 9 am Monday, Sydney has seen 13 straight days with 3 mm of rainfall or more, for a running total of 212.8 mm for May 2024. That's not a record rainy streak, but it's close. The Sydney average for the whole of May is 117.3 mm in records going back to 1859. Sydney has also experienced exceptionally low average sunshine hours in May 2024 to date, with an average of just 2.5 hours per day – compared to the long-term daily average of 5.9 hours for May. Image: Kiama is finally seeing a little sun again after rain every day in May so far. Source: iStock. Numerous locations further south have seen considerably more rain than Sydney, including: Point Perpendicular (at the northern entry to Jervis Bay, about three hours south of Sydney) which had received 392.6 mm to 9 am Sunday, with Monday's update still to be confirmed after yet more heavy overnight rain Kiama (just under two hours south of Sydney) with 366.8 mm to 9 am Monday Moruya (four hours south of Sydney) with 246.8 mm to 9 am Monday But as mentioned, the pattern is finally changing, with the low pressure system sitting off the coast near Sydney making its way out into the Tasman Sea. Further south, a cold front will impact Tasmania throughout Monday – bringing rain to the state's west coast and potential showers elsewhere – but the front will have little effect on mainland weather. While Melbourne will see a brief drop in daytime temps on Tuesday with cooler mornings on Wednesday and Thursday, conditions in NSW will remain relatively mild for mid-May The broad ridge of high pressure set to establish itself across southern Australia will put an end to the persistent easterlies which have funnelled moisture onshore for most of May – although the position of the high will increase the chance of showers for the Qld coast from midweek.
Weather in Business
07 May 2024, 11:23PM UTC
How severe thunderstorms impact energy infrastructure
Earlier this year destructive thunderstorms and winds equivalent to a category two cyclone lashed Victoria, bending towers and toppling trees and poles. So, how can thunderstorms damage energy infrastructure, and are these events getting worse? This event occurred during mid-February 2024, when a strong cold front generated severe thunderstorms and localised wind gusts of 130km/h after a prolonged period of extreme heat. The image below shows a squall line around 1,500km long causing lightning across four states in February. Image: Himawari-9 satellite image, lightning and radar on Tuesday, February 13 at 3pm AEDT. The destructive winds were caused by microbursts, which bent towers and toppled trees and poles in Vic, leaving thousands without power. Image: Damaged transmission towers at Anakie, Source: AAP Microbursts are a localised column of sinking air (downdraft) within a thunderstorm and is usually less than 4km wide. The cold, heavy air within this downdraft descends rapidly to the surface and then spreads out in all directions as it hits the ground. The image below shows how wind gusts are produced in thunderstorms. Microbursts can be destructive and cause wind gusts above 100 km/h, which can be a risk for power infrastructure. The force applied to the structure is roughly proportional to the speed squared. Fierce wind gusts from thunderstorms can: Knock down trees, which can fall onto power lines Topple poles Knock out transmission towers. Microbursts typically occur during the warmer months of the year and, unfortunately, they can develop rapidly and last for only a short period of time, making them difficult to predict and warn communities about. Have these thunderstorm events become more severe in Victoria? The severe thunderstorm season across southern Australia occurs during the warmer months of the year, between November and April. While thunderstorms are more common across northern Australia, Qld, and NSW, they do occur frequently in the summer months. The map below shows the annual average lightning density in Vic between July 2014 and June 2023, with the most lightning occurring in the northeast high country each year. Image: Weatherzone’s Total Lightning Network Annual lightning density mean between July 2014 and June 2023. You can see in the map above that lightning is common to the north of Ballarat near Learmonth and Miners Rest, with the region seeing 37.7 pulses per year. The high country near Benalla and Whitfield recorded an average of 28.1 pulses, Thorpdale in Gippsland saw 24.5 pulses, and Melbourne only 8.2 pulses per year. Research has shown that the warming climate is increasing the risk of heatwaves and bushfires, which can impact energy infrastructure. Unfortunately, it is unknown how global warming will affect thunderstorms and their associated destructive winds. To research climate change's impact on thunderstorms, we would need quality data that dates back well into history. Unfortunately, detecting lightning is a fairly new phenomena, so a solid climate base to compare data to is not currently existent. According to the University of Melbourne researchers and Watt Clarity, ‘The evidence we do have suggests continued climate change may potentially increase the risk of extreme winds from thunderstorms. This is partly due to more moist and unstable air, which are essential for thunderstorms to form. We think these conditions could occur more often with climate change, in part because warmer air can hold more moisture.’ Indeed, much of Australia had an unusually stormy summer 2023/24, with Melbourne, Canberra and Brisbane all seeing 5 to 6 extra storm days a season. The map below shows that an unusually high number of thunder days were seen over most of Qld, NSW, SA, Vic, the ACT and Tas during the summer of 2023/24 compared to the average of the most recent nine years. Image: Thunder day anomalies for summer 2023-24 versus the average thunder days for the nation’s nine most recent summers (2014/15 to 2022/23).
23 Apr 2024, 12:07AM UTC
Wind returning to southeastern Australia
After a prolonged period of light winds, a surge of powerful winds and cool air will push through southeastern Australia during the next 48 hours. As we wrote about last week the National Electricity Market (NEM) saw very low wind power generation during the seven days leading up to Thursday, April 18, with the daily wind generation having been under 41 GWh/day for this period. Wind power has improved slightly during the past week, with wind power increasing for a few days over last weekend. The chart below shows that the winds across the NEM have already increased in response to a cold front approaching SA and Vic on Tuesday. The increase in wind power is associated with a cold front sweeping across southeastern Australia, after a stubborn high-pressure system forced many cold fronts south for over a week. The map below shows the cold front marching across the Bight, approaching SA on Tuesday morning. You can also see a broad area of speckled cloud in the Bight, which is a tell-tale sign that a large mass of cold polar air has broken away from the Antarctic region and is venturing into the relatively warm mid-latitudes. Image: Himawari-9 satellite image at 9:30am AEST on Tuesday, April 23. Northwesterly winds will continue to strengthen ahead of the cold front on Tuesday in SA and Vic before a strong southwesterly change hits Adelaide on Tuesday afternoon and Melbourne in the evening. The images below show the wind gust forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon. Image: Instantaneous wind gust forecast at 1pm AEST on Tuesday (top) (bottom)and Wednesday, April 23 and 24, according to ECMWF While most of this wind should hit the wind power ‘sweet spot’, cut outs could occur at southeastern Vic and southern NSW wind farms late Tuesday into Wednesday. Generally, cut outs occur when wind speeds exceed 90km/h (25 m/s), which is when the wind turbines are turned off to prevent damage. In the image above you can see the front and associated southerly change moving up the NSW coast on Wednesday, hitting Sydney on Wednesday afternoon. Winds will then become light later this week as another high-pressure system moves into the Bight. Cool change coming Ahead of this change, much of southeastern Australia has experienced pleasant autumnal weather, with Sydney’s temperature for the next two days reaching 27°C. However, there will be a large temperature contrast ahead and behind the cold front in the next few days. The image below shows forecast air temperatures around 1.5km above sea level on Wednesday morning, showing the cool airmass moving over parts of SA, VIC, Tas. Behind the cold front strong southwesterly winds will cause temperatures to plummet to around 2-3°C below average across southern Australia; Melbourne and Adelaide's temperature dropping to around 16-18°C for several days following the front. Hobart’s temperature will drop from 22°C on Tuesday to 15°C on Wednesday. Sydney’s temperature will go from 5°C above average on Wednesday to average on Thursday. The coolest air will move over Tas, bringing snow to the alpine region there. Looking ahead, temperatures will recover later this week ahead of another cold front and burst of wind power early next week.
