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Unstable air brings showers & storms over the NT's eastern Top End, tropical north QLD and northeast NSW, intense over NSW. Showers over western TAS, far southern VIC and far southeast SA in a westerly flow. Drier and mostly settled elsewhere with a broad ridge of high pressure.
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Today, 5:03AM UTC
BoM declares El Niño over
The Bureau of Meteorology has officially declared El Niño over and the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is now inactive for the first time since 2021, meaning there is no immediate sign of either an El Niño or a La Niña event. "El Niño has ended and the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) has returned to neutral. Climate models indicate ENSO will likely continue to be neutral until at least July 2024," the BoM said in a statement on Tuesday. "As the current global ocean conditions have not been observed before, inferences of how ENSO may develop in 2024 that are based on past events may not be reliable." The story of the 2023/24 El Niño event Many Australians tend to associate El Niño with uniformly dry weather across the country, however this is not always the case and was definitely not the case over the duration of the 2023/24 El Niño event. El Niño’s influence on Australia’s climate was clear in late winter and early spring 2023, leading to the driest three-month period on record across Australia from August through to October 2023. The swift end to a moderate Australian snow season as well as severe rainfall deficiencies in large parts of southern Australia were just two clear-cut effects of the widespread dry conditions. This remarkable dry period was then followed by widespread rain and thunderstorms across eastern and southeastern Australia during summer, highlighting that El Niño’s influence is strongest during spring and that it does not always lead to dry weather, especially when other climate drivers were at play. A myth busted: El Niño years always mean dry summers The map below shows the summer rainfall deciles during 14 El Niño years, showing that during El Niño years much of the country can expect average to above average rainfall. Note just how much of the country is close to average during the summer months, with some parts even seeing a wetter than normal tendency. Image: Summer mean rainfall deciles for 14 El Niño years, source: BOM The return of wet weather in summer and Autumn was caused by the waning influence of El Niño, a positive phase of the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) and record-breaking warm sea surface temperatures off the east coast of Australia. The map below shows that during the during the last five months that much of Australia saw above average rainfall, except the west coast. Source: BoM. The record-breaking sea surface temperatures across northern Australia, also led to an unusually active end to the tropical cyclone season despite El Niño. Eight tropical cyclones have formed in the Australian region so far this season, with computer models showing another two possible in the next week. The average for an El Niño is around seven. The latest weekly Nino 3.4 value up to Monday, April 15, was +0.64°C, which has fallen below the El Niño threshold of +0.8°C. This means that the Pacific Ocean has returned to a neutral or normal phase, no longer influencing Australia’s weather. El Niño was declared in mid-September 2023 by the Bureau of Meteorology and as mentioned, it quickly became a strong event during November and December 2023. This contributed to the driest three-month period on record for Australia between August and October 2023. While the BoM forecasts that neutral conditions should continue through the remainder of autumn and into winter, three out of seven global meteorological organisations give La Niña of developing later this year. The US Climate Prediction Centre (CPC) and Columbia University’s International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) give La Niña an 80 percent chance of occurring by late winter/early spring and an 86 percent chance in late spring and early summer. Image: El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) forecast for the next 10 months, according to the U.S. CPC/IRI. The blue bars show the probability of La Niña occurring during each three-month period, with grey and red bars representing the probability of neutral and El Niño, respectively. Source: CPC/IRI The warm oceans and humid atmosphere that are associated with La Niña typically drive above average rainfall and cloud cover across much of Australia, especially between winter and early summer. Image: Observed rainfall deciles during 12 past La Niña winter-spring periods combined, showing that large areas of Australia typically experience above-average rain during La Niña. You can read more about the impacts of La Niña on Australia's weather here.
Today, 1:29AM UTC
Darwin's hottest day of the year?
Darwin could be heading for its hottest day of 2024 to date this Tuesday, with a top of 35°C on the cards and the potential to edge up towards 36°C. While we tend to think of Darwin having almost uniform maximum temperatures of 32°C or thereabouts, that's not quite true. Darwin's temperature fluctuations may not be as pronounced as the southern capitals, but our northernmost city still experiences swings of several degrees in its maximum and minimum temperatures on both a seasonal and daily basis. In seasonal terms: Darwin's coldest two months are June and July, with max temps of 30.8°C and 30.7°C respectively. Darwin’s three warmest months for average maximum temps are October (33.3°C), November (33.4°C), and April (32.8°C). So Darwin's three warmest months (in terms of max temps) fall between the wet and dry seasons, when warmer days are made more likely by a combination of clear skies and slightly more daylight than the winter months. In daily terms: Like any location, Darwin can and does experience daily temperatures spikes and troughs depending on cloud, sunlight, wind direction, humidity, and local factors. Indeed, Darwin’s hottest day of 2024 to date was January 2 with 35.6°C, at the end of a relatively dry two-week spell by wet season standards. Temperatures of 35°C or slightly higher are expected on three days this week in Darwin under persistent southeasterly – a wind direction that tends to push warm, dry air from the interior of the continent towards the Top End. If you take a look at Tuesday's synoptic chart (above), you can see how air circulating around the belt of high pressure centred over southern Australia is funneling towards the Top End, passing through the warm interior of the continent. As mentioned, that pattern generally means an upwards nudge of a couple of degrees on for Darwin's daily maximums. Meanwhile for those interested in what this year's wet season was like in Darwin, the chart below shows that the heart of the wet season was slightly wetter than usual while the shoulder period saw less rainfall than the long-term average.
15 Apr 2024, 3:38AM UTC
Perth storms drench some suburbs, leave others bone dry
The heavy rain that Perth residents are so desperately hoping for drenched some northern suburbs on Friday afternoon, but ultimately fizzled out in most parts of the city, delivering just 1.2 mm to the city's official weather station, while numerous locations in and around the metropolitan area missed out altogether. After Perth's driest six-month period in 148 years of records from the beginning of October through to the end of March, April had been totally rainless across the city until late afternoon on Friday, April 12. While the Weatherzone radar tantalisingly showed showers within a close coo-ee of the CBD, the heaviest rain stayed just north of the city, with flash flooding and unconfirmed reports of up to 100 mm in some suburbs while in suburbs further south the ground barely got wet. HAPPENING NOW: The drought has been broken for some of Perth’s northern suburbs, with heavy rain and hail after months of dry weather. ????? #9News pic.twitter.com/Mj6hpJHYLt — 9News Perth (@9NewsPerth) April 12, 2024 As Weatherzone meteorologist Brett Dutschke wrote on Saturday, for the areas that did get wet on Friday, it was the first rain in: Twelve weeks at Rottnest Island (just 0.2mm) Seven weeks at Swanbourne (1.0mm) Six weeks at Arena (0.8mm), Jurien Bay (4.6mm), Geraldton (0.6mm), Coolangatta (14mm), Badgingarra (4mm), and Gingin 16.4 mm Five weeks in Perth’s Mt Lawley (1.2mm), Jandakot (9.2mm), Jarrahdale (3.8mm), Pearce (11.2mm), Bickley (4.0mm) and Anketell (10.3mm) But overall, this was far from the significant rain even the entire southwest of WA needs, and regrettably, no such event looms on the immediate horizon. READ MORE: Desperately dry in southwest WA As any local knows, cold fronts which arise in the southern Indian Ocean usually produce the heaviest rainfall for the southwest, however such systems are still being blocked by unusually strong and persistent highs centred south of the continent. Indeed the airmass that produced the outburst of storms on Friday had tropical origins, and no moisture at all made it to coastal districts south of Perth. Source: BoM. The image above shows rainfall for the week up to Sunday, April 14. It paints a familiar picture for the first few months of 2024, with rain in inland areas but nothing in the southwest. We wrote recently about how Busselton had seen less than one millimetre of rain in 2024 to date and that is still true for the town two hours south of Perth, which is the gateway to the Margaret River surf and wine region. READ MORE: Jarrah trees dying in WA's big dry Meanwhile another dry week looms ahead for Perth and the southwest, and this one promises to be warmer than last week, when Perth maximums were in the mid-to high twenties from Monday through to Sunday. This week, Perth should top 30°C from Tuesday through to Sunday, reaching 34°C on Thursday. That’s far from record-setting territory – Perth's highest April temp was 39.5°C in 2020 – but it’s still well above the average April max of 25.9°C. More to the point, such warm temperatures at this time of year are almost invariably associated with the likelihood of dry weather. READ MORE: Perth's long frustrating wait for rain
Weather in Business
03 Apr 2024, 4:35AM UTC
Solar booms as Adelaide records sunniest March in 30 years
Southern Australia saw an abundance of clear skies during March, causing rooftop solar to soar to new heights. The run of sunny days was caused by blocking high pressure systems that prevented cloud and rain bearing cold fronts from sweeping across southern Australia. The clear skies led to Melbourne recording its driest March on record with a measly 2.8mm total, beating the previous record of 3.7mm in March 1934. Adelaide was also dry, recording 27 days without a drop of rain, while Sydney picked up 52.5mm of rain and Brisbane 152.8mm. Across the four major NEM capital cities: Melbourne saw its sunniest March in 18 years, with an average of 8.5 hours of sunlight each day. Adelaide recorded the sunniest March since 1994, averaging 10.4 hours of sunshine per day. Sydney observed an average of 7 hours of sunlight per day, which is the most sun hours the city has seen in two years. Brisbane was the cloudiest of these cities with only 5.7 hours of sunshine on average per day, consistent with above average rain falling in the city. The lack of cloud and rain across southern Australia led to increased rooftop solar output across the region in March 2024. Data from OpenNEM shows that rooftop solar in Victoria was the highest on record this March since rooftops installations begun in 2007. The graphs below show the warm season rooftop solar contribution to the National Electricity Market (NEM). Images: Warm season (October- March) rooftop solar power (GW/h). Data sourced: OpenNEM, AEMO, APVI. The rising trend in the graph above for VIC looks remarkably similar for SA, with March 2024 producing 294 GWh / month across the state, compared to 252 GWh / month from March 2023. The graph also highlights that the total solar generation has been increasing year-on-year since 2018, driven by a boom in solar installations across Australia. The Clean Energy Council reported that in 2023, renewable energy supplied a record 39.4% of Australia's electricity, led by wind's 13.4% share. Rooftop solar cracked a 10% share for the first time, reaching 11.2% ahead of solar farms at 7% and hydro's 6.5% share. During March 2024, rooftop solar across SA supplied 24.5% of SA’s energy needs, the largest in the NEM. Meanwhile renewable energy contributed 77% of SA’s power, with wind taking the lead with a 43.5% contribution. Image: March contribution to renewables in SA, Vic, NSW, Qld, Data sourced: OpenNEM, AEMO, APVI. Rooftop solar is the leading renewable across NSW and Qld, contributing between 11 and 12 percent to the state's energy needs, followed by solar farms then wind. Weatherzone Business and Solcast are a market-leading partnership delivering highly specialised solar data to the Australian renewable energy industry. Designed for utility scale solar sites, we offer you a globally proven solution. With low upfront CAPEX and powerful cloud-based information systems, you can access a complete suite of irradiance and weather data to ensure forecast accuracy and improve site efficiency. Solcast is the world leader in real-time actuals and rapid-update solar forecasts. This solution utilises Solcast’s centralised Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) cloud infrastructure for all complex algorithmic processes and data plumbing. You will gain the power of AWS to interpret and deliver your data at top speed, providing real-time, historical and forecasting estimates direct to your API. Receive monitoring and support from the Weatherzone and Solcast teams, 24/7. For more information, please contact us at business@weatherzone.com.au.
31 Jan 2024, 5:54AM UTC
Powerful waves to impact port operations
Deceptively powerful surf is forecast for this weekend, as heavy waves originating from the Southern Ocean hit the NSW coastline. The heavy surf will be whipped up by a low-pressure system sweeping across the south of the continent later this week. The map below shows wave heights of 3-4m are expected across the central and southern NSW coast on Friday and Saturday. Image: Significant wave height forecast at 5pm Saturday, February 3 according to Wave Watch III In Sydney waters, wave heights are forecast to peak at 4 to 4.5 metres on the weekend. These wave heights will create very rough seas off the Sydney and Illawarra coasts on the weekend. While the waves will be large, it's the wave period that will generate the deceptively powerful surf. Wave period is the average time between crests (or troughs) of waves. The larger the time difference, the greater the amount of energy associated with the waves or swells. The wave period should reach 10-12 seconds along the Sydney coast and south on Saturday. The map below shows the high period waves impacting the central and southern coastline on Saturday. Image: Wind wave period at 4pm on Saturday, February 3, according to Wave Watch III Looking ahead, the long period swell should move offshore by Monday easing conditions along the NSW coastline. Weatherzone Business offers a comprehensive suite of services, refined through years of collaboration with the marine, ports and offshore industries, to optimise the safety and efficiency of your operations. For more information, please contact us at business@weatherzone.com.au.
