The year 2010 has been nothing short of extraordinary when it comes to rainfall, with rain records smashed across much of northern and eastern Australia. The August to October period this year has been our wettest on record (from 111 years of record keeping) across the entire country- and there is another big soaking on the way this weekend. This will be the fourth, widespread, soaking deluge across eastern Australia this spring.
Thanks to a moderate to strong La Nina which is well established in the Pacific Ocean, we have very warm waters off the northern Australian coastline- this is the moisture source for all the rain that we’ve been seeing through northern and eastern Australia in recent months. This week northerly winds across the east have been funnelling very warm and humid conditions across the region so the moisture source for widespread heavy rain is back- all that’s needed now is a trigger! Tomorrow, this trigger comes in the form of a cold front. So the warm and moist tropical airmass from the north will clash with this colder airmass coming up from the south, resulting in an extensive area of rain that will move slowly eastwards. Far eastern SA, western QLD, central and northern VIC and much of NSW could see 50mm of rainfall from this system. Isolated falls of 100mm are also possible which could renew flood warnings across many already saturated catchments.
Of the capital cities, it’s Adelaide and Melbourne that will bear the brunt of this rain event over the weekend. Adelaide will experience a big temperature drop on Friday going from around 30 degrees in the morning to 20 degrees in the afternoon, accompanied by rain. The weather rollercoaster is also heading to Melbourne with the temperature dropping from 32 degrees on Friday to 23 degrees on Saturday. Rain and storms will develop during Friday afternoon and evening with the heaviest day of rain on Saturday. Melbourne could pick up around 50mm from this system.
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