Becoming cooler with showers, rain, some storms and perhaps snow: Feb 25-

[hillybilly]

Substantial change in the weather with a trough approaching today, which forms a low near Tasmania. This will spread showers across Victoria and rain, potentially heavy, across Tasmania. Then comes a sequence of fronts and troughs and much cooler air. By this time next week it could be cool enough for the first autumn flurries about the peaks.

Rainfall totals vary a lot across the models and southeast. TAS will get the most, but could be ok falls through southern and mountain ares of VIC. Not so much north of the divide.

Before this all happens a warm windy one today until late arvo.

Btw watch the Coral Sea to the northeast of this set up. There’s a big low forming which becomes largely stationary. That screams a substantial collapse in the trade winds. This will lead to rapid a warming of the central Pacific. This year’s climate drivers are likely to be very different to the last three

[hillybilly]

Bit surprised at the totals back in western Vic. Odd total around 20mm. Good to see. TAS now ramping up. Some heavy showers around Hobart, particularly south side with the odd fall around 10mm, and 2mm back in Howden.

EC has 60-100mm south and southeast of Hobart tonight. Fingers crossed. Been a very dry two months so really could do with it.

[Gordon]

A real change in the pattern for sure, almost feels like a transition to autumn. Currently 14C here and I can't see us hitting even 20C in the next 10 days at least. And if we do end up getting some autumn heat eventually, it becomes harder to reach the extremes and duration given a lower sun and shorter daylight hours.

Rainfall less dramatic with only a few mm so far, but we keep getting short heavy showers, so maybe this trough/front is not done with yet.

Fingers crossed indeed for those big falls in southern Tassie!

[hillybilly]

Flash flooding rain south of Hobart ATM. 28mm in 30 minutes in Howden and still pouring, 40mm since 6pm.

Few spots near Snug around 70mm since midnight.

[hillybilly]

Good pick by the models and fantastic autumn break for much of southeast TAS. 45mm back home, with more expected today. Best of it split north and south off Hobart with falls in the 40-70mm range in Hobart’s northern suburbs and southern suburbs. Peak falls seem to be around 75mm.

Expect a fair bit of minor flash flooding, with peak rain rates in the 25-50mm in an hour on stalled convergence lines. Fortunately they developed and typically only lasted 30 minutes of so, which prevented what could have been some really nasty outcomes. Those types of rates are unusual down here.

Looks like northern, central and eastern VIC, mostly missed out so the dry continues there.

[Gordon]

Excellent result for Tas. Just 4mm here, but even that is welcome after 2 weeks of zero!

[snowfall]

That's great to hear HB, and will hopefully have given a boost to tanks and dams.

Just 0.4mm here yesterday. It seemed like something wanted to get going but just didn't. So unfortunately the dry continues, with fingers crossed the pattern breaks some time in March.

[hillybilly]

Rained lightly most of the day in southern Tas. Another 5mm here. Frog are out tonight, very pleased.

Quite a lot of washout in the local area. Our peak rainfall rate was 155mm/hr which is pretty crazy for down here.

Rest of the weeks looking cooler, but just the odd shower. The second low looks to have disappeared.

Another strong front for next week

[Didjman]

4.6mm here overnight.

[StratoBendigo]

We've entered a mini-drought. 6mm for Feb 2023 (just 0.4mm on Saturday) and that's it. Not really anything on the horizon either.

[Didjman]

HB, if skies are clear you should see some auroras over next 2-3 nights!

[QldTwister]

Chilly to near cold atm and 8/8 cloud cover this is not late summer or Feb weather

Bleak 4 days on way too, lucky weekend is warm and sunny and maybe into early next week, then hopefully not to a strong cold front after that

Heavy showers last night bit of a surprise 7mm with those biggest fall in weeks

Deary next 4 days but Sat Sun Mon looking nice actally cold atm ergh its only Feb

Yeah drought is coming back this year and prob next few, hot dry dusty fires and heat gonna be big shock after what has been a great wet green 3 years. Inland really gonna feel it but least dams full, rivers got good flush wetlands full etc so be ok this year and maybe next before big impacts felt

[stevco123]

A dry Feb,March and early April seem to be the story of the day for the past few years.

[hillybilly]

Cooler day here today, but TBH we are feeling the really warm SSTs (running generally 2C above average and around record warm) here atm so southerlies and southeasterlies are not nearly as cold as you might expect. Had a few light showers but just 0.2mm in the gauge.

This mild pattern looks like sticking. Could get a decent westerly gale with widespread showers as we head into next week.

Btw looking at our rainfall on the weekend the 25mm we saw in 30 minutes and just over 30mm in 60 minutes are at the “1 in 100 years” level. Very unusual for the southern tip of Australia. Lots of thunder too - down here the cloud base was so low and rain so heavy that sound travelled poorly. Those type of rainfalls are consistent with the exceptional SSTs, with peak rainfall rates increasing around 15% per degree rise in SSTs. We’ve now had three 1 in 100 year events in ten months in the area

[snowfall]

We've had a couple of drizzly nights/mornings here. It's not adding up to much, with just 3.4mm so far. It's still drizzling and foggy now, and only 12c.

[Gordon]

Persistent cool, drizzly weather has added another couple of mm to the gauge here, with Feb finishing on 37mm vs our 26 year average of 47mm. (Better than last year's 2mm though!) 68mm ytd.

Temps running about half a degree below average.

[snowfall]

It was foggy and drizzly for much of the day yesterday, although it was very light, totalling 1.8mm.

We've finished the month on 39mm with a YTD of 71mm. The average max was 23.8c, so a little on the cooler side for February.

[Didjman]

bit off topic, but if you have clear skies at night:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-01/ ... /102033610

[StratoBendigo]

Still mid-20s in the day here. Mornings definitely getting cooler though. We ended up with 6mm in Feb. Dry.

Indications of a decent cold front clipping Victoria next week. It could drop maximum temps into the high-teens. Probably only 5mm for here though.

[hillybilly]

Been nice days here but windy. Showers now stuck on the west coast.

February finished on 80mm so happy after a dismal 5mm for January. It’s turned green here, and dams are up about a foot in a week (the torrential rainfall helped ).

Guess just about new thread time, with a strong westerly sequence. Big falls in western Tas, ok falls southern and mountain VIC. Be pretty nervous about fires in NSW and perhaps northern Vic with really gusty westerlies and pretty warm temps up there. So much fuel and very very dry now.