On 23 October the BoM published this map of rain predictions for the 3 months November 2009 – January 2010.
Just 2 short weeks later, on the nights of 5th and 6th November, the NSW north coast was deluged, Coffs Harbour reporting up to 500mm over the two days and flood reports are all over our media.
How many $Million does the BoM cost us ? What can their models be worth to the nation if results collapse in a heap in 2 short weeks.
And this organisation will be advising our Prime Minister of climate changes to take place for the next CENTURY !!
And Kev747 can not understand why the public is getting more sceptical of his Govts. ETS scheme which relies for its justification on IPCC rubbish.
For a long time there have been many critics of the BoM 3-monthly outlooks. Even if most of them were only half correct (which WSH has shown to be untrue) they would still be useless to most farmers and water planners since they attempt to cover a long period of time. But what gets me is that the Head of the Bureau’s Climate Dept still has the gall to castigate climate sceptics who point out that, since his 3-monthly outlooks are inaccurate, how can his dogmatic statements on our future climate be relied on?
On behalf of the flooded-in of the mid-north coast of NSW, I’d like to nominate the BOM for the Kruschev Award. It’s for disservices to rural life. They were nearly beaten into second spot by the National Parks, who “graded” our back road without gravel or rolling just prior to the flood. Mind you, after that effort, the Parkies are still in the running for a special Erosion Award.
Robert T
I’ve heard three times now on the media that Coffs Harbour only needs a few more mms this year to beat its rainfall all time record.
But when I checked the BOM site for 1950, the tally was a massive 3375mm. This appears at W/S 059010 at Coffs Harbour.
The station closed in 1965. The present station 059040 (Coffs Harbour MO) has rainfall data from around 1946-1951 missing.
See www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/cvg/av for 1950 average (with a massive 899mm for July).
Even 1963 had over 2800mms.
What are they saying around your area as to records being broken?
I make the total for COFFS HARBOUR MO Site: 59040; for this year to end October – 1919mm.
As you say Ian, a long way from a meaningful record.
There is a station 12.7km away, UPPER ORARA (AURANIA) Site: 59026
That had 3787.5 in 1950. In the 60’s three years topped 3 metres, the highest 3512 in 1967.
Ian, our 1959 record for November rain would have been in trouble if the dump right at the end of October had come a bit later. As it stands, the month is still young. We are, of course, way ahead of our yearly average, in spite of the very warm and alarmingly dry winter. This is supposed to be an El Nino. I can only repeat an observation I made previously on this website: winds are coming less from the west overall since 2007, regardless of climatic indicators. Despite the Big Dust and the odd westerly, this effect is very marked, at least to me. Something has connected us more with the ocean than with the inland. I’d love to know what it is and if it will continue.
The interesting thing about the Kempsey area is that nearly all records for monthly rain, heat, cold, drought etc are very old, some going back to the 1800’s. Some daily records for heat were broken in the last fifteen years, but no monthly records. For example, the period 1910 to 1920 holds eleven of the twelve monthly records for heat maxima – 1946 has the hottest August. Fair to say that a hot month indicates more than a hot day?
Surely this is a time for some healthy skepticism about the BOM, the various climatic indices, anything called “modelling” and, above all, AGW.
I live on the NSW North Coast and we have experienced three summers in a row of below average temps. During those summers, we seemed to get quite a few easterly winds due to high pressure systems which stall in the Tasman. This had the effect of providing cooler, moist airflows but, at the back of the high, causes hot northerly flows over inland NSW and SE Australia. This pattern is bringing hot weather to Adelaide and Melbourne at present.
This year’s warm spring was caused by a stable high over central Aust during July/August causing a heat build-up. This pattern brought hot north westerlies to our area and caused drought like conditions in western NSW/Victoria as the normal rain-bearing fronts could not force themselves north. Tasmania actually benefitted from this having their highest Aug rain for some time. I believe that the North Coast and Hunter regions are cooler today than 30 years ago.
These stable Tasman highs may explain our connection to the ocean rather than the inland. It would be interesting to see what the pressure system patterns were during the Federation Drought and other warm periods in the forties.
I heard it again on NBN news tonight. The weather presenter said Coffs Harbour needs only another 63mm rainfall to beat its all-time rainfall record. Had to send an email to them.
Thanks Ian. Very interesting comments. You’ve made some sense of my own experience of the last three years, which I tend to describe as back-to-the-fifties.
Something else quite interesting.
Yesterday I was listening to Graeme Hughes interview Jack Newton re the Tiger Woods appearance in Melbourne. Newton said the Melbourne heat was extreme, but he was truly puzzled that it was associated with an ocean wind, rather than a northerly (inland for Vics) wind.
People who have to do stuff in the open air notice things that are not apparent to certain boffins.
Robert,
The winds in Melbourne at present are coming from the South but the temps are still rising (29.6C at 2:10pm). Looking at the MSL Pressure analysis it may be that warm northerlies in front of the trough line are feeding back into the ocean breeze. The southerllies are also being fed by the warm temps that have built over SA and feeding around the high centred south of Adelaide.
But I am not a climatologist but I noticed up here that we should have been getting SE winds but the wind registered as NW. Maybe air flows from a high pressure to a lower pressure system.
It will be interesting to see as the trough moves east if there will be a cooler air mix in the southerlies reaching Melbourne.