The House(s) of Fran_mart

This a brief summary of the weather observed in Carwoola in 2018.  The dominating feature has been the dryness of the year up to November as reflected by both rainfall and humidity.  Temperatures were close to average, with a slightly colder Winter, and a sting of heat in late December. Rain For those who can't remember this is water that allegedly falls from clouds.  We had snow on two occasions in early August.   This first chart shows the annual total rainfall from 1985, and the number of days with >=0.2mm from 1993, to date.  The "number of days" series shows the gradual decline since 2011 that has been evident in my series of rolling accumulations up to 24 months. As with BoM my minimum fall is 0.2mm, which can be achieved with condensation from a heavy fog, so I have also compiled a series of # days with more than 5mm.  The chart below shows that to be more variable (RSE for the >;5mm series 21% vs 16%) but also emphasises th...

This will be my last monthly weather report from Carwoola as we are leaving on 19 January! Rainfall We had some!  Needless to say it fell pretty much in 2 days and flooded the Creek worse than I have ever seen it.  At this point the water would have been we over 1 metre deep going across the ford. Here are the graphs: well above last year and the month average.  As shown in this second graph it was the first month of the year in which we got and above average fall.  This did get us above the lowest fall ever recorded in Carwoola (which I will cover in more detail in the Annual report which I will compile soon). I have continued on my exploration of long cumulative series for rain.  It is now up to 24 months and the trend continues to show a dive..  However focusing on the end of the original series shows a hook which is exaggerated if the series is restricted to 2018.  Has the series of months with poor rainfall ended?  Who kn...

It has become a tradition that the folk at Windemere build a Christmas art work using hay bales along the lines of the designs seen in the fields beside Le Tour.  Last year also touched the cap towards the Stawell Gift.  This year it's a choir!  VERY well done Stacey and crew! The second part of the title refers to the murk lurking in the hills in the background.  I wasn't aware of rain in the forecast so assumed it was dust.  However as I approached home spots of water appeared on my windscreen, and the Weatherzone radar from Captains Flat showed a line of showers/storms moving through.  Going out to the NSW/ACT radar (to pick up lightning activity there seemed to be a fair few strikes behind the squalls.  (Interestingly on a weather site I have come across the word 'flang' to describe lightning: presumably a combination of flash and bang.)

My summary of the month was that it ended up being close to average in both rainfall (only 1.8mm below average) and average temperature (unusually for the recent past, below the average since 2010, by 0.6 o C).  Humidity in the morning was about average, but a tad elevated in the afternoon.  The outstanding departure from 'nomal' was that it was very windy. Rainfall As noted in the preamble very close to average.  That varies a bit according to when one takes the average: since 2010 the average is 84mm (as the Novembers in 2010 and 2011 were very wet); taking the whole range back to 1984 it drops to 76mm (which is probably the best measure);  but using all my data since 2007 (which is what I have traditionally used for these graphs) is 85mm. 2017 was similar to this year so still a bit below average on this graph.. It still seems that we are are in a long term drought which has now run for 23 months (since January 2017).  Looking at 23 month total...

There has been much muttering on a weather forum about the rain event scheduled for today, which suggested huge rainfall for Sydney and the mountains West of there.  This first image is a forecast from Metelogix  from about 5 days ago.  It's got a pretty palette (and actually seems pretty accurate)! This was the Weatherzone radar for NSW about 0530 on 28 November.  Sydnet is already copping a big serve. Here is the BoM Doppler radar at 0630 showing the wind coming from the coast.   The BoM radar at 0700 is interesting since, when set on loop, it showed moisture coming down from the North as well as that coming up from the Coast About 0830 there was a comment on the Forum from Lane Cove " 97mm since 5am here in cyclone like conditions".  That was more or less reflected in comments in the SMH, which also  covered delays at Sydney Airport due to strong winds.  Yep the planes are going into holding patterns over Dalton (image from Flightr...