Australian Weather

03 Apr 2026, 2:50AM UTC

Thunderstorms early this Good Friday impacted Western Australia's south with high intensity, bringing more than a month's rain in just a few hours. The biggest storms impacted Great Southern, southern Goldfields, Southern Coastal and South East Coastal districts, For some, including Munglinup (36mm), Esperance Airport (34mm) and Hopetoun North (18mm), it was the biggest rain since last winter. For others, it was the biggest rain in a year. In just a few hours early this morning, Munglinup West and Lake Grace received their highest daily rainfall since last April, gaining 44mm and 26mm, respectively. This is more than a month's worth of rain for both places. Kulkerin, with a relatively mediocre 19mm, also had its biggest rain in 12 months. One of the biggest downpours occurred at Magenta Dam, a short drive southeast of Newdegate, receiving 78mm in six hours, including 45mm in 3 hours and 28mm in an hour. The monthly average for this area is about 28mm. Of course, with thunderstorms, often someone gets too much too fast, others get too little. Newdegate, barely a 15-minute drive from Magenta Dam (82mm in total), picked up a paltry three millimetres. Image: Lightning, radar, satellite, rainfall observations and isobars at 5:30am WST. Source: Weatherzone.  After sunrise, the most intense thunderstorms had shifted east of Salmon Gums area by 7:30am WST. Image: Lightning, radar, satellite, rainfall observations and isobars at 7:30am WST. Source: Weatherzone.   Looking ahead for southern WA, the offending trough will take the main area of thunderstorms slowly east across the Nullarbor between now and Easter Sunday. Another trough will take over from late Sunday through to mid-next week, generating showers and storms over a similar area. Many places are a chance to receive two or more thunderstorms this weekend, taking them to near or above their monthly average rainfall, barely a week into April. After a dry start to summer, less than two millimetres during November and December, Munglinup West has made a rainy comeback, gaining about 123mm since the start of February.      Image: Monthly rainfall observations compared to averages for Munglinup West. Source: Weatherzone.  

02 Apr 2026, 5:09AM UTC

Spring forward, fall back. That simple mnemonic phrase is all you need to work out which way to turn your clocks when daylight saving ends this weekend – assuming you still have a device or two that requires changing manually. In spring, turn your clocks forward an hour. In fall (or autumn as we Aussies call it), turn them back an hour. READ MORE: Don't make this common daylight saving mistake Daylight saving ends at 3am this coming Sunday in New South Wales, Victoria, the ACT, Tasmania, and South Australia, April 5. At that moment, it will become 2am. The reversion to standard time across Australia means that from the early hours of Sunday, Perth will be two hours behind the eastern capitals, while Adelaide and Darwin will be half an hour behind – that is, until we do it all again in October. How does the daylight saving changeover affect weather data? One of the ways that the changeover affects weather data is in the 9am observations. The BoM collates Australian weather data based on a 24-hour weather day from 9am to 9am. Some weather stations only record 9am and 3pm observations, while a few only record 9am data – usually because they are remote and/or manually operated. But the 'old’ 9am effectively becomes an hour later when the daylight saving changeover occurs a few days into April, which means you’re not quite comparing apples with apples with 9am readings across the entire month. Image: Graph of air temperature in Melbourne on a day in March, showing a typical rapid rise between 8am and 9am (standard time). Source: BoM. As the graph above shows, this time of day also happens to be when the mercury tends to rise most rapidly in many areas. So the impact of comparing 9am temperature data across a month when 9am effectively means two different times is accentuated. This is not a problem for maximum and minimum temperature data – as daily highs and lows can occur anytime within the 24-hour weather day. But when you’re comparing data related to factors like temperature or humidity at a specific point in time, it can make for statistical headaches. But that’s for the BoM to worry about. The rest of us just have our chocolate sugar rush headaches to concern ourselves with. We hope you have a good break this Easter if you’re lucky enough to be off work.