For the month of April our min. av. temp was 1.2C up at 9C while our av. max was up by 1.5C at 21.6C.

Our rainfall was also up by 55.5mm at 97mm while our year to date is still 42.25mm above average at 353.75mm.

Anyhow May is off to a damp start.

Cheers.

Here's something new- the BoM has issued a space weather warning.

The Bureau of Meteorology's Australian Space Weather Forecasting Centre has forecast a geomagnetic storm event of level G4 (severe) on the global G-scale.
...
Geomagnetic storms of G4 level can potentially disrupt:

critical infrastructure such as power grids, causing power outages
satellite services, affecting communications and global position, navigation and timing services that use high-frequency radio communication
The Bureau continues to monitor the situation and will provide updates of significant changes.

G5 is the highest warning level.

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Grant
Darwin NT

From last night's storm.


More expected tonight.

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Grant
Darwin NT

Wow!

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From last night's storm.

I'm curious about the photographic data. What aperture ratio does the lens need (standard or expensive high-speed lenses) and the exposure time (seconds?). I suspect you can't see northern lights at all with the naked eye at low latitudes. Correct?

From last night's storm.

I'm curious about the photographic data. What aperture ratio does the lens need (standard or expensive high-speed lenses) and the exposure time (seconds?). I suspect you can't see northern lights at all with the naked eye at low latitudes. Correct?

Yes you won't see the aurora borealis (northern lights) here down under, but you can see the aurora australis (southern lights).

Sadly I missed the spectacle due to the heavy cloud and rain occurring at the same time.

Cheers.

Yes you won't see the aurora borealis (northern lights) here down under, but you can see the aurora australis (southern lights).

D'oh!

I've had luck with cheap camera (less than 10gbp) nd an expensive one (no change from 2000gbp). Small appature (large f-mumber), long exposure (several seconds) is said to be best, but the auraura is realy intense then even a point amd click camera or phone will get reasonable results.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Well, Tassie is certainly getting the snot knocked out of it lately.
Gale force (and stronger) winds over the last few days, and tonight and tomorrow even stronger winds are expected & this time with flooding to top it off.
Power outages for some are likely to take up to a week to be resolved.

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Grant
Darwin NT

Just what some of us really don't need during our wet season.

Rare summer La Niña could be forming in Pacific, raising risk of wet weather start to 2025.

The great rainmaker, La Niña, could be back for the fourth time in five years, increasing the prospect of a soaking start to 2025 across most of Australia.

La Niña refers to a cooling of the tropical Pacific Ocean and the subsequent shift in global weather patterns, including a strengthening of moist easterly winds blowing towards Australia, and a subsequent increase in cloud development and rain over the longitudes.

Your average La Niña forms in winter, peaks in late spring, then gradually weakens through summer. However, the current edition has not played by the rule book — for only the second time in 75 years, its onset has arrived in the middle of summer........

Starting today we're expecting at least 10 days of wet weather which could see our average January rainfall fall in that time. :-O

Cheers.

I was wondering why the temp here dropped so much so quickly in the early hours of this morning. It snowed down south pushing a lot of cold air up the western side of this range.

Coldest February night on record in parts of Victoria with summer snow in the Alps.

Melbourne has shivered through its coldest February night on record on Saturday as summer snow flurries fell in the Victorian Alps.

The temperature in the city dipped to 9.9 degrees Celsius on Saturday, breaking the previous February record of 10C on February 15, 2017.

At Mount Baw Baw, a 26-year record was smashed when the overnight temperature plummeted to minus 1.4C, breaking the previous record of -1C on February 8, 1999.

Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Keris Arndt said the cold front that moved into Victoria on Friday was dragging very cold air from the Southern Ocean over the state.....

I wouldn't have liked to be the 1 sleeping in that swag last night.

Cheers.

Melbourne has shivered through its coldest February night on record on Saturday as summer snow flurries fell in the Victorian Alps.

It's because of the Global W... Freezing, they tell us each day in the TV news.

Today is the day to see if these so called weather experts get it right and cyclone Albert turns back towards the coast.

First cyclone crossing in 50 years to bring major flooding, destructive winds.

South-east Queensland and north-east New South Wales are bracing for the first tropical cyclone to make landfall since Zoe and Wanda in 1974.

While multiple systems, including Nancy in 1990, glanced the region, a direct hit from Tropical Cyclone Alfred is likely to result in a much greater impact, including widespread major flooding, destructive winds and dangerous surf.

And while Alfred is forecast to strike as a category two system — well below the intensity of many cyclones over northern Australia — its path over one of the most highly populated regions of Australia has amplified the threat......

'74 saw our original roadhouse here blown away, but at least its dawdling will allow me to get my backyard fully trimmed today.

Stay safe and dry.

Well that cyclone is certainly taking its time and may not make landfall until tomorrow, but its strength remains.

My satellite connections here are getting dodgy so I could lose contact for 2-3 days.

Cheers.

That cat.2 cyclone is now not likely to hit the coast until at least noon tomorrow so it certainly isn't in any hurry at all which is very un-cyclone like.

Airports from Brisbane down to Coffs Harbour were all shutdown yesterday with Brisbane being very close to the landfall point, but south of center of it will be the worst effected by it. I just hope that the escarpment will blunt a lot of that before it hits these highlands.

Stay safe and dry.

https://weather.us/model-charts/euro/queensland/sea-level-pressure/20250307-1000z.html

weather.us is the (English language) U.S. outlet of the Swiss weather service Kachelmann GmbH, named after its founder Jörg Kachelmann (first in Europe to challenge gov funded national weather services)

This site enables simple access to the different global as well as regional forecast models of the major weather services (ECMWF, GFS, UKMO, ICON, ACCESS-G(AUS), ...), select continent, country, region...., parameters (e.g. temp, sea level pressure, gusts, precipitation, ...; select archived forecast runs (calendar; time); view forecasted hours.

This monster will make landfall near Brisbane.

Well Alfred is now an ex-cyclone, but it's still dragging a lot of wet stuff behind it as a tropical low.

It seems that after passing over the islands it found the water in the drain had cooling effect, but it's still expected to make landfall in a couple of hours.

Anyhow the wind is gusting up again effecting satellite connections so I'll go back to reading my book for a while.

Cheers.

Well that eastern escarpment certainly did its job protecting us up here as we didn't come close to the 200mm expected with us getting just 36mm of that, but enough to make the yard feel like walking on a soggy sponge.

Meanwhile a lot of moist air is now being pumped inland behind this range that will meet up with low trough coming in from the west so it looks like my yard will be a jungle again by the time the ground dries out enough to support the mower.

Anyhow we now have rain running down either side of the range and hopefully it'll stay that way so that I can get out of here for a couple of hours to enjoy a LLB up at the pub.

Stay safe an dry.

Some pics of what Alfred did.

Gold Coast icon unrecognisable after cyclone.

Stay safe an dry.

For those that are interested, here's a news article with more detailed images comparing the before and after of the effect of Cyclone Alfred on parts of the QLD coast.
A few days, a few million tonnes of sand relocated...

Drone maps reveal scale of sand swallowed in cyclone.

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Grant
Darwin NT