Dry spell set to be broken

Shepparton’s dry start to the year has continued through to autumn with the city’s March rainfall less than a fifth of the monthly average in the past 23 years.

Shepparton's dry spell is set to be broken.

But this looks set to change in the next few months, according to predictions.

Only 5.4 mm of rainfall was recorded at the Bureau of Meteorology’s Shepparton airport site last month, well below the monthly average of about 30 mm since 1997.

It was the driest March since 2015, when just 3.8 mm was recorded.

But unlike 2015, when more than 65 mm was recorded in the year’s first two months, Shepparton recorded only about 13 mm in January and February combined.

This year to date has seen just 18.6 mm of rainfall in Shepparton.

This is the driest start to the year since 2004, when just 11 mm was recorded in that year’s first three months.

Last year was Shepparton’s driest in 12 years with bureau rainfall readings at Shepparton airport receiving a total of 266.4 mm.

This was the lowest annual rainfall at the site since 2006, when a total of 183 mm was received.

The 2018 annual rainfall total was also the third lowest on record for the site, according to the bureau.

By contrast, the yearly rainfall total for 2016 was 640 mm, while 426 mm fell in Shepparton in 2017.

More than half of March’s 5.4 mm was received on one day.

But the dry weather may be about to turn around.

According to the bureau’s three-month outlook for Shepparton — from April to June — there is a 100 per cent chance of at least 50 mm falling in the next three months.

It reports there is a 61 per cent likelihood of at least 100 mm falling, 23 per cent chance of at least 150 mm falling and a 7 per cent chance of at least 200 mm falling in the next three months.

The story, “Dry spell set to be broken” is from The Shepparton News.

Heat lingers to start autumn.

Autumn is usually meant to signal the end of summer.

But Shepparton must have missed the memo for the first five days of this month, when the maximum daily temperature did not dip below 35°C.

The fourth day of the month set a record for Shepparton’s hottest March day, likely in at least 50 years, peaking at 40.3°C.

The first three days hit 37, 35 and 37, while the fifth also reached 35°C.

Meanwhile, since March 6 the city has experienced a cooler spell, peaking mostly at high 20s and low 30s.

Recorded at the Shepparton Airport weather site, the Bureau of Meteorology said the 40.3°C March record went back quite a long way.

While records at the Shepparton Airport only go back to 1996, records at other sites in the Shepparton area go back to 1965.

Using records from sites that go further back, the bureau says 40.3°C is the hottest March day.

On one March day in Lemnos in 1986 it got close; 40.1°C.

However, a hot start to autumn was also felt just three years ago.

In March 2016, there were eight consecutive days reaching 35°C or hotter.

This 2016 period, March 2 to 9, included five days of temperatures 38°C and hotter.

Shepparton sweltered through heatwave-like conditions during January, with the mercury passing 40°C on eight days and reaching the city’s hottest summer temperature in at least 20 years — 46.2°C — recorded on January 25 at Shepparton Airport.

Bureau figures show Shepparton recorded not only its hottest summer day, but also its highest mean daily minimum and record highest mean temperatures.

Summer’s mean maximum recorded at Shepparton Airport was 33.1°C, 2.5°C warmer than average.

This topped the previous summer mean daily maximum record of 32°C, set in 2013.

Story from the Shepparton news by Thomas Moir “Heat lingers to start autumn.”

Winter is coming, and it’s looking mighty mild

After an exceptionally warm and dry autumn, it’s time to look ahead to see what’s in store for winter. 

Autumn rainfall map

The Bureau of Meteorology’s climate outlooks for winter, issued today, shows above-average temperatures and below-average rainfall are likely across southern Australia. While some of us will relish the prospect of a mild winter, the dry isn’t necessarily good news for everyone.

Summer-like conditions continued into early autumn for much of southern Australia, including an exceptional heatwave in early April. Temperatures in autumn were warmer than average across much of the continent. New South Wales, South Australia, Western Australia and Victoria all experienced one of their warmest autumns since at least 1900. Overnight temperatures have also been warmer than average in most parts.

Read the report on The Conversation by a Climatologist with the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, Jonathan Pollock, and the Manager of Long-range Forecast Services, also from the Bureau, Andrew B. Watkins - “Winter is coming, and it’s looking mighty mild.”

Australia’s climate of fire

A big bushfire skirting the suburbs of Sydney, Australia, was made more likely by the preceding hot and dry start to autumn. The fire season has been extended by several weeks as summer heat kept recurring.

Australia's autumn heatwave is attributed to a
changing climate by scientists expert in the field.

This sort of heatwave, during spring or autumn, shows a greater divergence from the long-term average than a summer or winter heatwave.

"I would bet my house on it, that there's a climate change signal in this most recent heatwave," said Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, climate scientist at the University of New South Wales.

Read the Aljezeera story - “Australia’s climate of fire.”

Australian weather forecasters say autumn will be dry and warm

A dry and warmer-than-average autumn has been forecast for nearly all of Australia, worrying farmers in southern states hoping for rain after a hot summer.

The chance of above-median maximum
temperatures forecast for the Australian autumn.

The Bureau of Meteorology’s latest outlook, released on Thursday, has predicted higher temperatures across the country – apart from eastern New South Wales and the upper Northern Territory.

Rainfall is also forecast to be lower than usual in much of central Queensland, the southern NT, north-west Victoria and parts of Western Australia. The bureau’s initial autumn report said these areas had a 70% chance of below-median rainfall.

Agata Imielska, a climatologist from the bureau, said the dry season was a result of high-pressure systems and the weakening of the La Niña system in the Pacific Ocean.

Read the story by Naaman Zhou on The Guardian - “Australian weather forecasters say autumn will be dry and warm.”

Remarkable' high pressure shielding much of Australia from winter's wrath

Farmers and ski resort operators are watching synoptic charts with growing anxiety as some of the highest pressure readings in a decade reveal an autumn that is refusing to let go.

Dominant high-pressure systems have lately been the norm. Parts of Australia recorded readings of 1039 hectopascals at the start of the month, compared with typical pressure levels of about 1013 hPa. 

"Values that high are quite remarkable [and are] at least a one-in-10-year event...for any time of the year," Andrew Watkins, head of climate prediction services at the Bureau of Meteorology, said.

A string of high-pressure systems in recent weeks have been further south than usual, pushing rain-bearing cold fronts further poleward.

Rainfall totals across the country are running below 20 per cent of a typical June with almost two-thirds of the month over, Dr Watkins said.

Read Peter Hannam’s story in the Melbourne Age - “‘Remarkable' high pressure shielding much of Australia from winter's wrath.”

Warm and wet are related, and a sign of climate change

An unusually warm autumn in Victoria and never seen before floods in Serbia and Bosnia seem disconnected and remote, but they are not.

Linking these two apparently disparate events is the earth’s damaged climate – the fingerprints of climate change are all over both.

Today’s Age reported about Melbourne’s, and most of south-eastern Australia’s, autumn heatwave in a story headed: “Heat’s on and we’re having a ball”.

Several pages later it wrote about the Serbian and Bosnian floods in a story headed: “Floods sweep Serbia and Bosnia”.

Those two stories needed to be side-by-side in support of a covering story about the diverse and wide-ranging implication s of climate change, and when that happens we will have made a significant step toward helping our community understand just a little about the seriousness of climate change.

Looking back to the halcyon days of bushwalking

by Robert McLean

Bushwalking once held my gaze.

The experience of such printine wilderness
 is common for bushwalkers in Tasmania.

Much of my leisure time saw me a bush inspired-like trance as I considered, prepared for and set off on many adventurous walks.

A friend, with rich and vast experience of life in the bush, advised that autumn was the kindliest time to be outdoors as it generally had the most stable weather in that there were fewer wet days; it was cooler than the extremes of summer and warmer than the depths of winter, and the wind less intense.

He was correct and beyond a few days when the weather was somewhat less than what was hoped for, conditions for bushwalking were benign, bordering on ideal.

Bushwalking is about experiencing and soaking up the world’s wilderness areas, at least those in my corner.

Oddly, the more who visit those very areas in search of that experience, the more eroded the wilderness becomes. Arrival of humans signals the death of a wilderness.

And so it goes. Humans seek out the wilderness, but their very behaviour destroys what they are looking for.

Having been to a few wilderness areas and adhering to the bushwalking adage of taking only pictures and leaving only footprints – the former has never been a practice and the latter can’t be avoided – the wilderness, however, was a little less “wild” subsequent to my visit.

Therein rests the difficulty as the richness and the prodigiousness of life, of which we are just one troublesome species, that some have likened to a plague, finds much of its fertility in what we call wilderness, but what nature considers “just right”.

Ever since standing upright it has been man’s endeavour to master nature, to shape it in response to its wants and needs.

Untroubled for billions of years by mankind’s demands, nature went about its business stocking its larder and burying, as it does, its ancient sunlight and the plan, as erratic as it might seem to us, was evolving smoothly until man stumbled on the code, unlocked the pantry to gorge itself on the contents.

Those locked away fossils fuels and other resources were not free, contrary to the view of many, and although there was no obvious checkout, we are now being asked to pay.

Floods recently devasted parts of
Victorai and New South Wales.

And we are certainly are paying now with our troubled climate producing notably unseasonable autumn weather – record rains and subsequent floods, heat waves and coastal cyclones.

My friend was right, at the time, about the constancy of autumn weather, but that seems to be slipping away even though that argument is defied by glancing out the window to a beautiful, classic autumn day.

Despite that, my return to those halcyon bushwalking days is unlikely, just as will be the return of predictable near ideal autumn weather.