Farm Weather South Australia

Quick Update SA NW Cloudband rain event June 28-29th 2024 *Forecast issued afternoon of June 28th 2024 G’Day one and all, as promised a quick look at this Cloudband event. I have to say it’s not formed out quite as well or cleanly as I would have hoped given it has split but given the last event overperformed a little for some parts of the Mallee, Mid North, and N YP, the urgency for this event is a little less. However, for those that missed out last event just a bit further north, it is very urgent indeed. Meteorological Discussion I will keep this part very short but essentially we have that expected NW CLoudband I mentioned in the Mid-Month update and for the most part the type of system is going to occur but the main difference is the whole system has now split with the main cut off lows stuck over WA with a new ridge undercutting it. Showers and thunderstorms are occurring within this low after some heavy falls near Perth yesterday when the system was fresher. Further SE a cold f...

June update 2024 SA *Forecast prepared between June 17th-18th 2024 Review: G’Day everyone, I hope you are keeping well and no doubt busy keeping a very close eye on any emerging crops. I expect many still have no emerged which would no doubt be stressful so this update will take a look at the next 2 weeks and how things are shaping up rainfall wise. We have made some progress finally in some dry districts but there are multiple locations that have received minimal rainfall and need a lot more in these coming weeks to have any chance to get near average rainfall for the month and indeed going forward with their yields. June so far has been a real mixed bag – a dry and mild to warm start after a little bit of rain at the end of May. Frost was a feature across most districts in the first week and in particular on the mornings of the 2nd & 3rd where many negative readings were recorded, chiefly in the north and east of the state. However, the 5th, 7th, 8th 16th and again especially thi...

June Outlook 2024 SA *Forecast prepared between June 2nd-4th 2024 Review: G’Day everyone, winter is here! And certainly, off to a cold start with some frosty mornings right across the state, including KI where Kingscote Airport has recorded –0.2C and –0.9C for the first two mornings of the month which is very cold for that part of the world. Keith recorded –1.8C on the 2nd and at the time of typing this, it looks like the morning of the 3rd will be the coldest with potentially some moderate frost and –2C minimums at least in some prone locations such as the Clare Valley and Riverland. I hope the warning in the most recent quick update was of use for these sudden frosts although not a huge deal can be done about them. Reviewing further back in May and we can safely say it was a shocker of a month, right up until the last couple of days at least when finally, a decent NW cloudband and cold front with cold air moved through. A secondary little shortwave then kicked in on the 31st to keep ...

  Quick Update Opening rains/cold front May 30-31st 2024 G’Day one and all, hope you are doing well. It is finally time for that opening rain of the season, so I thought I’d pop out a quick little update on the expected progression of the system(s). Meteorological Discussion To the charts and currently we see a cloudband developing across WA bringing with it some moisture sourced from the Central Indian Ocean, the area I noted from the last update as we finally have a longwave trough with a high enough amplitude to grab some of it. A cold front is marked to the rear of the cloudband extending out of a deepening surface low south of the Bight. This low will continue to deepen rapidly in response to the strong forcing of the broad upper trough behind it. A secondary trough associated with the core of the cold air/cold pool has been slamming SW WA overnight with strong cold air thunderstorms and copious amounts of hail. The warm waters off the coast of WA have assisted in adding more ...

May update 2024 SA *Forecast prepared between May 18th-21st 2024 Review: G’Day everyone, we have gone past Mid-May and without change in the current pattern over the state, which is no doubt a concern to many of you. We’ll take a look back quickly at the last couple of weeks and also discuss the April pressure anomalies which have now been uploaded. Figure 1: April 2024 500hPa (18,500ft) pressure anomalies – source NOAA https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/monitoring-content/sotc/global/hgtanomaly-global/hgtanomaly-global-202404.png Figure 1 above tells a very grave tale about the level of blocking that has been going on showing in red the areas of higher-than-normal pressure for April. The blue areas represent lower than normal pressure. We can see here that the stronger Longwave near New Zealand has caused quite a roadblock upstream with the large red high-pressure area south of about WA. However, there is a slightly larger high-pressure area below Africa and an even bigger one SW of South Amer...