This was on the ABC TV 7.30 Report Monday 13 Jan 2014
[Alasdair Hainsworth from the Bureau of Meteorology: For this time of year yes, it’s not unusual. The unusual part about it is probably the longevity of the heatwave, particularly through southern Victoria and also Tasmania.
Tasmania receiving four days in a row with temperatures in excess of the mid-30s, high-30s even into southern parts of south eastern Tasmania. That’s really very unusual indeed.
So yeah, the extreme nature of it and the longevity of those extreme temperatures is somewhat unusual.]
Now to check this out click on the various climate districts on the map – does not take long to quickly scroll down through the green rainfall data and check out how those days Tuesday 14th to Friday 17th fared. Mostly there are few temperature stations to eyeball. My impression is that for majority of sites Tuesday was the standout hot day and the next 3 mostly failed the BoM test. Readers will make their own mind up.
Remember this is the same Alasdair Hainsworth who on 18 December predicted – Heatwave expected to hit one-third of Australia over Christmas – a prediction which miserably sunk without trace.
Launceston – www.bom.gov.au/climate/dwo/201401/html/IDCJDW7025.201401.shtml – 4 days above 30.
Australia – Christmas to new year 2013 – 1/3 of Australia 4 degrees or more above average – tinypic.com/r/20zxwyh/5
George –
OK, Launceston 4 days above 30. But that’s not what Hainsworth said. He said:
“Tasmania receiving four days in a row with temperatures in excess of the mid-30s, high-30s even into southern parts of south eastern Tasmania. That’s really very unusual indeed.”
Launceston’s highest temperature for the four days 14-17 January was 34.6, next was 33.0. It had not one day of “temperatures in excess of the mid-30s, high-30s”. And Launceston is not even in southern Tasmania. In Hobart the highest on any of the four days was 32.7 on the 17th, but on the other 3 days the maxima were 30.3, 24.3, and 22.6. And even Hobart is not “southern parts of south-eastern Tasmania.” At Cape Bruny, the highest temperature on any of the 4 days was 26.8 Dover made 30.0 once, and the rest were under 23. Epic fail for Hainsworth’s forecast. And figures for Australia as a whole, last month, are completely irrelevant.
George the prediction was 4days above mid 30s – not 4days above 30. Big difference. Likewise 4 degrees above normal is not a heatwave.
This seems to be standard practice in all BOM’s in the English speaking World these days. They announce headline-grabbing temperature estimates on the hot side, then when these fail, they lie low and fade away from the public view, leaving the population with the impression that they were correct in their prediction. Associated with their practice of adjusting recent temperatures up on a routine basis, and lowering pre-1970 temperatures, to preserve an upward gradient in the face of ‘declining’ temperatures, their propaganda arm is much more effective than their prediction arm..
“And figures for Australia as a whole, last month, are completely irrelevant.” ?
It was a response to – ” Remember this is the same Alasdair Hainsworth who on 18 December predicted – Heatwave expected to hit one-third of Australia over Christmas – a prediction which miserably sunk without trace.”
George – Your comment about temperatures across Australia around Christmas should have been on the thread on that topic, which Warwick linked to. Even if it had been on the right thread, since when is four degrees above average a heat wave?
The subject of this thread is Hainsworth’s prediction of temperatures “in excess of the mid-30s, high-30s even into southern parts of south eastern Tasmania”. Do you accept that that prediction was wildly inaccurate?
Looking forward to the post dealing with BOM’s Summer outlook…www.bom.gov.au/climate/ahead/temps_ahead.shtml. At this stage another stunning failure looms…
There is some missing data (at least 3) for Dunally -max temperature but minimum temp is there. How can that happen with electronic instruments. Maybe, BOM did not want to include them as they would reduce the average. Dunally is where there was a bad bushfire and the people hid under the jetty in the water. It is close to the coast not that far from Hobart Airport
Viv Forbes has an excellent post on previous high temperatures…..wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/20/australian-heatwaves-are-nothing-new/
And yet at the same time in the north it was cooler than normal…. not widely reported but perhaps even more relevant….
…Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Todd Smith said yesterday was on par with the coolest January day in Darwin’s recorded weather history.
“It reached 25.7C. The last time we had a temperature that low was on January 1989 since records began 72 years ago,” Mr Smith said.”It’s very rare.”
www.ntnews.com.au/news/northern-territory/as-other-capitals-sweat-its-cool-to-be-in-darwin/story-fnk0b1zt-1226802644894
That is an interesting Darwin story Lank – an example of how somehow between the BoM and the media the ordinary gets beaten up to something more unusual. It is so easy to check these data in real time in 30 seconds on the www so how the NT News could get such simple facts quite wrong is amazing.
The article mentions a max of 25.7 and the headline is about Darwin – and Darwin Airport is the long accepted temperature site – yet if you check, the official number for Darwin Airport was 28. OK still nippy for top-enders in January.
www.bom.gov.au/climate/dwo/IDCJDW8014.latest.shtml
Trying to find the 25.7 you could check the 14th here –
www.australianweathernews.com/data/DE1_14GA.HTM
there were some lower numbers as low as 25.5 at Batchelor but nothing near so low around Darwin. OK so maybe the newspaper confused the numbers.
But here is another thing, why did the BoM guy make out it was so unusual? – he must have known it was a 28 max on the 14th – so why was he quoting the 25.7 from Jan 1989? – when only on Christmas Day and Boxing Day 2013, not even 4 weeks ago, Darwin Airport had 28.6 & 28.1.
Aaaah Warwick – you’ve made a classic beginners error – 28.0c is the 24 hour max
Well done George –
I was aware of the 9am issue years ago but by non addressing the factoid over years the brain mis-filed that –
I remain more concerned that an organization the size of the BoM – with colossal resources and a budget ? half a ~$Bill? –
can so often be the source of so much material that turns out less than reliable.
Hobart media made a fuss of the 38 degree Friday forecast for Hobart for days. In the event it went over 30deg about 11 o’clock peaked at just over 32 and was back at 28 degrees by about 1.30.