Brett Dutschke, 07 Feb 2016, 4:49 AM UTC
Southeastern Australia drying out after wet start to year
After a wet start to the year, southeastern Australia is drying out, beginning its driest spell in about two months.
Adelaide, Hobart, Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney and Brisbane and virtually everywhere in between will receive little or no rain for at least a week due a belt of high pressure taking over southeastern Australia.
This should be the driest week for southeastern Australia as a whole since at least early December. This was the last time all capitals failed to gain even a millimetre of rain during the same week.
This is a big turnaround given that the region had its wettest start to a year in two decades. All southeastern capital cities gained at least 40mm of rain during January, the first time this has occurred since 1996.
Between mid-December and early February frequent low pressure troughs combined with bursts of tropical moisture to bring above average rainfall to nearly all of the region. Together with delivering badly needed water to dams, this also reduced the bushfire risk at a notoriously dangerous time of year. It is exactly six years ago since 'Black Saturday' when volatile bushfires devastated parts of Victoria.
Looking ahead to this week, cold fronts will be too weak to bring anything more than the odd, light drizzly shower to the mainland coasts and a few light showers to parts of Tasmania.
As a result, the ground, grass and bush will all dry out, slowly increasing fire danger.
The next best chance for all capitals to pick up some rain together is mid-to-late February.
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