Starting with the regular reminder that this is a personal weather blog – for official weather forecasts please use the BoM, and for fire warnings / updates / information please use the RFS. Please do not rely on this blog to make important decisions regarding your property or location with regard to the fires!
We have fires burning on all sides of us at the moment – and rain is going to be key in getting them out. The latest forecasts through until the end of the weekend show the chance of some reasonable totals (though nothing big enough to really knock everything out) along the hills, but very little along the coast:
If the forecast rainfall comes off it looks like it could have some impact on the inland fire grounds…but not looking so good along the coast and in the far NE of NSW. Temperatures are also going to be higher over the next couple of days. Here’s the forecast maximum for Friday:
Looking hot with the temperature likely to hit 40c at a couple of spots in NE NSW. The coast will keep a little cooler with a very strong sea breeze coming in from the North to North-East. Here’s the forecast wind gusts for Friday afternoon:
A little cooler for the weekend, particularly Sunday, before we see higher temperatures again early next week…before the next change moves through overnight Tuesday. That change could bring some stronger winds, but details are not clear at this time.
The Southern Annular Mode – alongside the Indian Ocean one of the big drivers of this dry – is slowly heading back towards neutral…but it is a slow mover and will likely take until the end of the year to get there. In the meantime it is forecasting that the SAM will turn more negative again over the coming couple of weeks. This increases the chance of stronger westerly changes:
The Indian Ocean Dipole event is weakening – though being such a strong event it will take some time to get back towards neutral:
As both drivers head back towards neutral we’ll hve increasing chances of getting some good rains…but with both coming from such a strong starting point it will take some time to get there.
