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Stay informed with the latest weather forecast video, covering rain patterns, temperature outlooks, and severe weather warnings. Updated every few days with expert analysis, from Weather Scientist Alex Dunne.
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00:02Hello Australia, it is Sunday the 8th of November and this is your national weather update.
00:06We're going to go through the weather this week and then we're also going to have a more detailed
00:09look for the December outlook. We're also going to answer that question of why some of the long
00:14range models got it wrong a few weeks ago. So that's what's coming up ahead in this video.
00:18Starting out with this week's forecast though, I want to start with the mean sea level pressure
00:21chart just to get your head in of what's happening. We have a strong sort of mid-latitude cyclone
00:26here in the Tasman Sea which is sitting around for a few days driving very strong winds up into
00:30the east coast. All right, that's what's happening in the east coast driving strong winds. We have
00:34high pressure sitting down in the south which is having some settled weather for the next few days
00:38before the next systems roll in. And then across the north we have lots of these little low pressure
00:43sort of centres driving troughs and driving a lot of rainfall and moisture. Across this week we're
00:48going to see very strong winds across most of the country and a lot of times where there's rain there
00:53is a chance of thunderstorms. So that's what's coming up ahead this week. Looking at the rainfall
00:58totals from this possible potential Sunday to Sunday we can see that a lot of the north is going
01:03to receive sort of 25 to 50 mils, a lot of southern and eastern Queensland and then along the east
01:09coast
01:09we're getting pretty good rainfall and then also down here in southern WA. But most of the country at
01:14some point this week looks like it will get some form of rain. Let's check in with the current weather
01:18warnings that are being issued. Down here in southern Queensland we still have minor and moderate flood warnings.
01:22I think these will likely continue this week as we have some days of some moderate to severe rainfall
01:27coming again. We obviously have strong wind warnings down New South Wales coastline because of that
01:31cyclone sitting off in the Tasman. We have sheep graziers warnings in Victoria and New South Wales
01:36because across sort of southern New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania, very cold overnight temperatures.
01:41We also have some wind warnings across South Australia and WA which will intensify a little bit
01:45tomorrow. We also currently have in place some heatwave warnings across the north mainly because it's not
01:52cooling off at night time. So that's why yeah we've got lots of days where it just doesn't cool down
01:56at night time
01:57it's still in the 30 degrees up in the north. So that's what's happening there. All right let's get into
02:03before the day-by-day forecast just to show you this strong wind that I'm talking about.
02:07This is just Monday. I've just chosen a day that I think is kind of representative of at least where
02:11we
02:11are at the moment. You can see strong mid-latitude cyclone here in the Tasman driving that wind along the
02:16east coast
02:16here. We've got another front moving through the south which is extending up as a trough delivering 40 to 63
02:21kilometer
02:22hour gusts across a lot of the central interior parts of the country but then all around that we still
02:26have strong wind.
02:27So it's strong wind week. In terms of temperatures with this wind, the wind and the direction of it means
02:32that the south of
02:33Australia is quite cool. It does warm up a little bit as we progress into the week but then it
02:38cools back down into the weekend as more rain comes.
02:40Speaking of which, let's get into the rain forecast. All righties, starting here on Monday, we have this first interior
02:48trough mainly
02:48concentrating a lot of the rain in the north. This cyclone is delivering wind but not rain there for the
02:55east coast.
02:56All right, similar setup for Tuesday. Again, more concentrated in this northern region.
03:00Wednesday, this is associated with some strong thunderstorms delivering rain across most of WA,
03:06most of the northern territory and the central in parts of Queensland. We then have another sort of onshore
03:12system. This is like a little low pressure centre here delivering rainfall across northern New South
03:17Wales, southern Queensland and then other parts of southern New South Wales. This is also associated
03:21with thunderstorms for this region. Moving ahead into Thursday, we again have a very similar setup although
03:27this western system has moved slightly further south. Again, some strong rainfall for the same
03:33areas that are currently under flood warnings. Cool, we're dry in the sort of South Australia,
03:38New South Wales, Tasmania, Victoria region. Friday, it tends to ease a little bit. Still some moderate
03:44rainfall if you're in the central interior part, although I don't think we have many people living
03:47there. We do have some more moderate rainfall in eastern Queensland and again up in the northern coastal
03:53regions. Saturday, this system, this sort of trough line that extends down through here, I have seen
03:58associated with some strong thunderstorms throughout New South Wales and southern Queensland as well.
04:04This part of the WA system is also associated with thunderstorms and same thing for Sunday,
04:10just more intense. Alright, so that's the sort of day-by-day breakdown. As you can see there's
04:15lots of things happening, lots of things on the go and really the summation is for most parts of the
04:22country. It looks like you're either going to be dry, maybe a light shower, or there's sort of moderate to
04:27strong rain. That's, I think, kind of what we can say this week. Obviously, it changes where you are,
04:31but that's sort of a story. Okay, let's get into the long-range forecast. First off, I want to answer
04:39this sort of question that I've had for a while, not looking at this particular setup, but you know,
04:45we've been looking at the second week rainfall forecast period and it's just been kind of quite
04:50off for the last few weeks, especially in the Queensland region. It said it was going to,
04:54it was unlikely to exceed the median rainfall, even though our short-term forecast showed some
04:59really, really significant rain on the way. And in fact, you know, we had a week where there were
05:04parts that had received record high rainfall, but it said it was unlikely to exceed the median rainfall.
05:10So why is that? I finally got to chat to some colleagues and essentially this Access S2 model
05:15from the Bureau of Meteorology that they run, it just doesn't really work for anything shorter than a month.
05:22So if you want sort of a week from sort of now to next week, use the forecasts that we
05:32have or that
05:32the Bureau has. If you want anything longer, you probably want something from like the European
05:37ECMWF forecast because that runs a little bit longer as a numerical weather prediction software,
05:42which basically means like we run the Bureau's model for like seven or eight days. ECMWF runs it for
05:47about two weeks. Access S2 starts picking up accuracy when we look at the first month. So
05:54just something, you know, that I'm learning, maybe that helps you that if you want accuracy,
05:58we've got to be looking at a month and beyond, which we were looking back again at this week at
06:03work and saying, actually this model, the Access S2 from the sort of first month or the three month
06:07ones has been pretty accurate this year. So just something to keep in mind. That being said,
06:12let's have a look at December. That's what we're going to focus on for the rest of this video.
06:15December looks like there is a likely chance of exceeding the mean rainfall across much of the
06:21eastern, central and southwestern parts of the country. Now, what does this mean? This means this
06:28green to blue is that 60 to 80% of the models are showing or producing above median rainfall. That
06:34could,
06:34that could be just a millimeter above the median rainfall. It could be 20 mils, right? So that's what
06:3960 to 80% of those models are showing, which means if we had five models, we don't, we have
06:45like a
06:45hundred or something, but it means, you know, two out of the five or one out of the five is
06:50showing
06:50median or below median rainfalls. Just to try and build in that we're not looking at something with
06:56certainty, we're looking at chance. So there is a very likely chance that these places will receive
07:01or exceed the median rainfall, but it doesn't guarantee it. That's just what we're looking at here.
07:05We're also seeing that there's a low chance that this northwestern coastline will exceed the median
07:11rainfall. Now, you know, I prefer to look at this, which is the 75% chance scenario. So the likely
07:18chance scenario or the most confident chance scenario that we have for December. And I like to compare it
07:25to what we got last year. So yeah, we're looking at the month of December. So you can go back,
07:29look at your farm catalogs or farm records, sorry, for December last year and see how it went compared
07:36to this. Okay. So last year, if we look at this map, which is the deciles, there's obviously lots
07:42and lots of rainfall in this sort of Northern Queensland region, very much above average or
07:47highest on record and very, very, very, very low rain along the southwest coast and this interior and
07:53South Australian region. If we look at the numbers or the totals that that was, we saw that this sort
07:58of
07:58um, central region got 0 to sort of 10 mils and then this blob got 400 to 600. If we
08:04look at the
08:05forecast, okay, we're seeing that these areas are likely to receive between 1 and 25 mils, which
08:12relates to, if we look at this chance above median, why we have higher than median, right? Okay,
08:19just cluing it all in. Um, if we go back to this, we're seeing that last year, sort of this
08:27east coast
08:27region got between 25 mils in this light green and 100 mils in this slightly brighter green.
08:33And then if we look at what we're going to receive this year, again, 25 mils in this lighter green,
08:38100 mils in this brighter green, and then this dark green is 100 to 200. So showing the very, very
08:43Northern New South Wales, Southern Queensland, South East Queensland coast is going to receive
08:47maybe some more rain than last year. All right, looking for example, in Tasmania, sort of the Oatlands region,
08:54this is showing 10 to 25 mils. And if we looked at last year, it was 25 to 50 mils.
08:59So maybe less
09:00rainfall than last year. That's just to help you get your head in. Actually, we were saying that it's
09:03going to be dry up in this Norman coastline. Last year, up here, 200 to 300 mils. This year,
09:09we're seeing 50 to 100. So that's actually quite a big difference there. Hopefully that helps clue your
09:14head in to the rainfall coming this December. I want to chat about temperature for a little bit,
09:20starting off with minimum temperature, top quintile. It is very, very likely that we will exceed,
09:27or not exceed, very, very likely that we will get very hot minimum temperatures.
09:32We have seen that already. That's what these heat waves that are currently being issued across
09:36the Northern part of Australia are part of, right? It's because the minimum temperatures aren't cooling
09:40off. So that's what we're seeing. It's quite, you know, sort of balanced across most of the country
09:45that we're going to get some very hot days of minimum temperatures. If we look at our maximum
09:53temperature top quintile, so this is the top 20% of maximum temperatures, we're actually less likely
10:00to receive these than sort of usual. So we're still more likely, especially Tasmania. Tasmania looks like
10:06it's going to be really hot. I think that will contribute to a high fire risk down there.
10:10Same thing for sort of Eastern Victoria, up into the central regions, you know, it's likely, but
10:15I think it's where we're going to see the records broken is in our minimum temperatures. So that's
10:20what's coming up there. Quickly checking in with our climate drivers, I do want to show, firstly,
10:26the Southern annular moat. This big peak is all these little lows and troughs that we're seeing
10:32across the country, which is why I didn't use this word this week, thank goodness, but I feel like I
10:35keep
10:36using the word trophy. That's because we've got all these little cutoff lows that are extending
10:39these troughs and bringing these sorts of wide bands of rain. That's why, okay? It's not only,
10:44it's not the only reason why, but that's definitely a contributing factor. That's what we're seeing
10:47coming from the Southern annular mode. We're also getting lots of tropical moisture from sort of
10:50warm ocean waters around us, right? So that's what's contributing to a lot of the rainfall,
10:54as well as these sort of shorter conditions that are conducive to rainfall.
10:58And then finally, I want to end on the Madden-Julian oscillation. It finally has some shape to
11:02it. I haven't seen that like this for a while. MJO is becoming a bit more active and basically
11:06what we're saying is that we're transitioning now. So first off, I should say, when was this issued?
11:12This was issued the 4th of November, so a few days ago. As of the 9th, which is Monday,
11:18we're transitioning out of a drier MJO into some sort of more neutral days and then into a wetter MJO
11:23from sort of next week. So more rainfall possibly on the way for northern parts of the country.
11:28And then towards the end of the month, we're transitioning back into some possibly drier
11:32states at the MJO. So that's what we're seeing here. Finally, a little bit of shape to it,
11:37which I haven't seen in a while. All right, that is it for this week. A big update. Apologies for
11:42that,
11:42but I hope that you found that interesting. I definitely found it really, really interesting
11:45this week chatting with my colleagues and learning more about those long-range forecasts that Access
11:50S2 model produces and even, yeah, the different ranges that we produce our numerical weather
11:54processes and forecasts for. So that was an interesting week of learning for me as well. If you have more
11:59questions, do let me know. Otherwise, have a great week, stay safe, and I'll see you next time. Bye!