Will rain interrupt Thursday's Test cricket?
It's day two of the third Test between Australia and Pakistan at the SCG, and there are two questions on every cricket lover's mind.
- How will David Warner go in the first innings of his farewell Test, and;
- Will it rain?
As we wrote on Tuesday in our preview of the weather for this entire match, Thursday afternoon into Friday morning looks the most likely period of the game to see rain interruptions.
Day one on Wednesday escaped weather interruptions. While broadcasters broke into a sweat as they displayed the ominous-looking weather radar, the storms dissipated before they reached Sydney’s east (where the SCG is located), as predicted.
A relatively weak southerly change is now moving up the NSW coast this Thursday, bringing with it an increased chance of showers to coastal areas.
Winds swung around to the south and southeast at Sydney Airport around 9:30 am, after mostly blowing from the north on Wednesday. Southeasterlies often bring summer rain to Sydney.
If you take a look at the graph on our Sydney weather page, you can see that the likelihood of rain increases throughout the day.
While there’s no distinct cloudmass on today’s satellite pic, and no large blob of colour near Sydney on the morning radar, this could be one of those deceptive days when showers set in due to two main factors:
The high content of moisture in the atmosphere both ahead of and behind the change, and:
The warm Tasman Sea, which is several degrees warmer than usual for this time of year (as you can see on the chart below) which increases the chance of rain on days like this.
Image: Sea surface anomaly temps in Australian waters as of January 2. That red patch off the SE tip of Australia down towards Tasmania is helping fuel rain events in southeastern Australia. Source: BoM.
We might get lucky today and only see drizzle too light to interrupt play. But we wouldn't bet on it, and the later the day goes, the more the chance of showers that will prevent play.
Image: Pakistan give David Warner pats on the back for his great career, even if certain moments were a bit "rough". Source: AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts.