Discussion: Sydney's Weather

[rainfan]

Wll give my review of it Monday evening ATO2. I'm sure it will be shown in NZ later on. As for the word "climate porn" - quite a interesting phrase. Had flies here on Tuesday when 21deg but they've disappeared since Wednesday no doubt due to the cold weather, hope they don't appear for a long, long time as they're particularly irksome insects

[ATO2]

I shall look forward to it! Yeh, flies drive me nuts! That's one thing we did not have in Singapore: no flies. But there is everything else you never wanted to see to eat your food or mine out the drawers and cupboards.

[rainfan]

Yesterday - cold start, min of 8oC. Blue dome skies at first with some slight mist & light to moderate northerlies, high cloud increasing during morning, overcast by afternoon with rain from late afternoon. Max of 16oC.

Today:- Continuing rainy & wet til around 11am then mainly dry day apart from a mid afternoon shower. Overcast & dark. Very mild night with low of 13oC & max of 19oC (airport 13/20) with northerlies moderate to fresh at times.

N winds are much better than those icy cold SW-W winds as nightime temps have been kept well above average & daytime doesnt feel so cold

Rain to 9am today:-
City: 12mm
Airport: 8mm
Rose Bay: 12mm

[ATO2]

Its the end of Winter: I love that time when you know the great weather's on the way back! Was 17 here, yesterday, 16 today, almost no wind. And, no rain!

[rainfan]

Lovely "First day of Spring" day today (certainly got rid of those "Monday Blues") with wall to wall sunshine/blue dome skies. Cooler this morning with min of 10oC, maximum reached 21oC in city & 22oC at airport. Winds were light to moderate, fresher NE winds in the afternoon.

Grass so green & starting to grow & flowers/trees starting to bloom new shoots/leaves/flowers . Same weather expected for tomorrow, however colder from Wed-Sat with 16oC expected with showers/SE winds.

Summary for Aug. 2008

Sydney in August 2008

Note the comments about the windier than usual conditions - no surprise there . The cold of August was certainly a shock to me as I've always regarded August as mild to warm owing to previous Augusts being much warmer than usual; still I suppose we were due for a colder than usual August .

Coastal areas of the eastern suburbs fared better with rain than the city; Rose Bay - 77mm (prelim.) which is slightly below average by 13mm.

Winter rainfall whilst below for the city is above at Rose Bay with 261mm (avg. 309mm) and 347mm (avg. 313mm) respectively.

Sunshine of 232hrs 10 hrs below average. YTD 1663 hrs.

[ATO2]

Thanks for the info, rainfan. I will come back and comment later...bit busy the past few days.

[rainfan]

Yesterday: Blue dome skies/wall to wall shine, moderate to fresh winds, cold early with 8oC mild afternoon with 20oC. Airport 8/18oC.

Today: sunny/cloudy periods during the morning, more cloudy during the afternoon with some light showers about. Cold day with 9/17 for the city & 10/17 at airport. Light NW winds changing to moderate-fresh southeasterlies from early morning onwards.

A ECL is expected to develop off the coast on Thursday delivering wet & windy conditions to Sydney from Friday until late Saturday. SE winds are expected to strengthen progessively tomorrow, possibly reaching gale force in the evening/overnight along the east (includes my home). It's quite unusual to get a ECL in September, IMHO the seaons are running a month later than usual, temperatures haven't seen much improvement from August. It's looking like a wet week ahead for us, September is usually the driest month on average with 69mm.

Review of the movie "Sorched" on Sunday night - provided quite a frightening insight into what would happen if Sydney actually ran out of water. Severe heatwaves with temps of 42 in the city/48 out west; rain has not fallen on 249 days (*Looks at the net for flights to NZ*); stage 8 water restrictions; swimming pools not allowed to be used anymore; dams at 10% capicity; water pressure toned right down to weak.

Public disorder/panic widespread, economy going bust, many business closed down; people putting their houses on the market & fleeing Sydney. Black market dealing in water stolen from water mains - prices 10x the price of normal retail.

Severe bushfires; 509 people dead with thosands/thousands of homes destroyed; not much water to fight fires even though a desal. plant is operating; it's all due to the corrupt Premier diverting water away from the western suburbs to the local electrical company; in return they lower the power bill for running the desal. plant & donate $1 million to the Premier's campaign fund

In all a good movie with good acting. Some actual footage of bushfires taken from previous years used.

[ATO2]

Glad you liked the movie! So it seemed OK? I think you had some reservations, earlier on.I take it the politician didn't die?
Seems an irony to see such a programme when you are facing more rain!
Noted the lower than normal temperature predictions for Sydney on our TV weather reports.

[rainfan]

Yes I did have some reservations earlier on, it was a good movie (which surprised me as I'm quite a difficult person to please where movies concerning weather/climate are concerned!) with several actual facts but exaggerated on one point; I don't at all believe for a moment that Sydney will ever go without rain for 249 days (roughly 8 months)! 30, 40 days -yes as it's happened before but 249 days - I'm not sold on it at all.

The Premier didn't pass over, when the head of fire services discovered the truth, made hundreds of CD copies of hidden cameras recording the "discussions" between Argon (Elec.company) & Premier), confronted her at a press conference & gave copies to every journalist in the room, she was forced to resign immediately.

The storyline very much reminded me of the Xmas-NY period of 2001-2002 when numerous huge bushfires raged to the west of us; persistant hot, dry NW winds carried all the smoke over Sydney; smoke hung over Sydney from Dec. 24th to Jan. 6th; ash all over Sydney on cars, roofs, footpaths etc - a particularly horrendous time & not one I remember with much fondess at all. Xmas Eve 36oC; Xmas Day 34oC (We were forced to spend a couple of days including XD indoors at a relative's farm on the central coast of NSW near Gosford); NYD 37oC and 2nd 33 degrees.

[rainfan]

Mostly cloudy & cold today with fresh to strong SE winds; saw heaps of rubbish bins blown over. 13/17 in city/at airport. Rain and wind should increase here overnight or in the morning.

Was going to do 1957/1977 but changed my mind to 1981/1990 as more "recent".

September 1981: Was a very dry month with totals less than 10mm; one of the driest Septembers on record & the 3rd consecutive very dry Sept. It was also the 7th instance of a consecutive run of well below normal rainfall that had started in March 1981. Ob Hill recorded 5 days of rain - 2 had falls over 1mm & other 3 recording less than 0.9mm.

Ob Hill 6mm; Centennial Park 1mm; Randwick 4mm; Airport 5mm and Rose Bay recorded no rain at all. This was due to persistant dry westerlies. In spite of this sunshine was nothing exceptional with 245 hrs which is average.

On the 27th very severe westerly gales were experienced with much damage done to property; a maximum gust of 117km/hr being recorded & the highest Sept. gust since 1976 (115km/hr).

Temperatures were well above normal with one of the warmest Septembers on record following on from the record warm one of last year (1980), mean max of 22.1oC was 3rd highest on record (equal with 1919). Mean min of 12.3 degrees was 4th highest on record along with 1972/1980. Temps exceeded 20oC on 19 days; highest was 29oC (twice) & lowest min. 7oC.

September 1990: Was much wetter than usual (250-300% of average) with monthly totals being over 200mm & the wettest Sept. since 1982.
To 9am on the 15th, Ob Hill recorded 89mm accompanied by a southerly & maximum being only 14oC. Rain fell on 13 days.

Ob Hill 205mm; Botanic Gardens 202mm; Randwick 202mm and Rose Bay 220mm.

It was much cloudier than usual with 204 hrs. Sun did not appear on 5 days. Maximums were cooler than average; minimums normal. Westerlies prevailed during the first week with easterlies over the remainder.