Discussion: Sydney's Weather

[rainfan]

Saturday - remaindar was mainly sunny but with some cloudy periods from mid afternoon onwards. Cold with top of 17oC in city.

Rain to 9am Sat:
City: 16
Airport: 9
Rose Bay: 15
Highest:23 at Randwick

Yesterday - after another cold night of 6 degrees, dawned sunny, remained so until mid afternoon then had a storm sweep by with rain, thunder, lightning & cold winds, then some showers lasting well into the night.

Today - Just got home in the midst of heavy rain & shivering/chattering teeth, thank god for a lovely heated house , sure is freezing outside , very dark as well. Even had some some hail as well. Gardens totally waterlogged, footpath is running like a little creek, heaps & heaps of water runoff everywhere!

After a cold night of 7oC -today until 2pm had sunny/cloudy periods then clouded over, got real dark & rain started to fall after 3pm. Temp before the rain was 13oC, now it's a freezing 8 degrees! Currently raining but not as heavy as before.

City 7/13
Airport 6/12 (Coldest place in the MA along with Terrey Hills & Campbelltown)

Rain to 9am today:
City 4.2
Airport 4
Rose Bay: 7.4
Highest: 19mm at Castle Cove (N)

Rain since 9am today (to 5pm):
City: 11
Airport: 7.4
Rose Bay: 13
Highest: 18 at Little Bay

Have been enjoying those southerly bursts with heavy rain/showers , winds fresh to strong, certainly a wintry afternoon/evening

[TokWW]

Saw heaps of hail in a suburb of Sydney somewhere on the evening news - first time in 175 years or something - hail - that's rain rainfan, that met some b cold air early on in its life!! Hmmm 8 degrees in the afternoon - no, not very warm at all especially with a southerly breeze... Gotta love those southerly gusts with heavy squally rain!! The noise on the iron roof and the whistling and buffeting of the wind - great stuff!

[rainfan]

Hi.

The true story is some residents of North Shore suburbs (Lindfield, Killara, Roseville etc) thought it was snow (If it actually was then would have been the first time since 1836 that snow has fallen somewhere over the MA but even there are doubts about this), BOM checked & confirmed that it is not snow but soft hail which to the naked, untrained eye looked like snow.

Here's a link to a article re this:

Sydney weather hail, not snow | The Daily Telegraph

Yes, it's freezing, if it was in the morning then normal but for midarvo - indeed so! Not that I'm complaining, I'm enjoying it a lot - plenty to talk about at work tomorrow much to the chargrin of some of my workmates

Southerlies usually brings quite wet, windy & cold conditions here (something we have in common with Wellington - RWood will know what I'm talking about) but it's one of my favourite patterns as it tends to bring "interesting" weather as well as lots of rain

Will be on its way to NZ soon enough!

[TokWW]

Yes I know about miserable storm force southerly winds with hail - i came from a farm 70miles or so east of WGTN on a farm with an east-west ridge about 5 miles inland from the coast of Sth Wairarapa.

I remember once driving the 185 Fergie back home from the tops with a heading dog who came for the "run" - just managed to shut the gate against the southerly after driving forward into the impending hail storm, and decided to sit it out on leeward side of the tractor against the huge back tyre, engine idling - I finally saw the dog who had raced on ahead, eager to get home - he was sidling back along the hill on a narrow sheep track below the tractor as he came into the clearing - the V of the shelter as it swept around the tractor and down the LHS of the ridge and rejoined - quite uncanny seeing the hail as a curtain!! Needless to say, the poor dog's tail was between his shivering legs as he clambered up the hill to the shelter of the big wheel!! We sat there for probably just 5 mins until it passed... friends still!

Southerly storms - Aaaahhh!

[rainfan]

Well, it's 4.12am and still raining, in fact we had some real torrential to heavy rain showers overnight. Since 9am yesterday 49mm has fallen at Rose Bay (Wettest suburb in the MA ) with 10mm from 10pm to 11pm & 12mm from 11pm to midnight. City 22mm and Airport 15mm which indicates the rain is mainly coastal with showers extending to the city & airport. Penrith in the west has recorded only 0.8mm which makes me so glad I dont live there . Looking at the radar - bit more to come . I'm a bit surprised at the level's of BOM forecasting re Fridays and yesterday/today's rain as they insisted that it was "few showers" when it's actually been rain, heavy at times, even when they updated it at a particular time with "few showers", it had/was pouring outside for hours.

[ATO2]

Yes, I loved the footage of the soft hail!

[RWood]

Sydeny has managed 171 hrs of sun with 2 or 3 days of the month left. Even allowing for day-length, that's a heck of a lot more than any NZ site is likely to produce this month - and many of us are rain-sodden at present. Bring on some drier brighter weather!

[rainfan]

(Am at work now)

Left home to go to the bus stop at 4.55am in quite torrential rain, lasting half an hour alternating with normal rain & freezing southerly squalls. Had some hail at the bus interchange at Bondi Junction lasting 3 minutes , rained all the way until just before the city then no rain but grounds very wet. Clear skies to the west and cloudy skies to the east!

60mm for Rose Bay and 32mm for City since 9am yesterday

Rose Bay has definitely exceeded it's July average, Ob Hill - just about atm near average.

We'll get about 200 - 210 hrs of sun for July providing there is sunshine from tomorrow to Thursday which is nothing new really as the average is 205 hours.

It's mid winter in NZ now so of course it's wet, July has the highest average where rainfall is concerned (for the NI that is).

[RWood]

I think July is trying to re-establish its top placing in the averages here - the 30-year one 1971-2000 has June a little ahead, though the records back to 1928 at Kelburn have it the other way around by a few mm. We are approaching 200mm for the month with a YTD surplus of over 180mm. The longterm average for Jun-Aug is 392mm, last year was 366mm and 2006 605mm (the highest in the Kelburn-only record). This year so far has about 333 with a significant increase likely in the next few days. The March-July total is now 813mm, could conceivably pass 1956's total of 860 but not the swamping in 1974 which had 955. So the accumulation over those months, combined with a comparative lack of strong winds overall, is the cause of the sogginess.

[rainfan]

Re the heavy rains I mentioned before happened to be the last of them as the rest of today was a mixed bag of sun/cloud periods with strong, cold southerlies and some light showers especially on the coast, however it has just again started raining lightly .

City: 8/15 (reached when sun came out)
Airport: 8/13

Rain to 9am today
City: 33
Airport: 17
Rose Bay: 63 (highest in metro area) followed by 55mm at Little Bay then 47mm for Long Reef (N)

The 63mm at Rose Bay is the highest daily (9am yesterday to 9am today) fall July-wise, 2006 had 85mm 9am 2nd to 3rd.

Max gust at airport: 63km/hr

A week of fine weather expected from tomorrow with plenty of sunshine, however the cold dry SW wind will be back once again with colder minimums, however am looking forward to Friday where it's expected to be 20 degrees even if it's for one day only .

Trees in spite of the cold, wet weather of recent days have started to bloom (slowly) new leaves. Flowers not yet out but by end of Friday - probably will be.