Monthly Archives: June 2014

3-year trends to May 2014

Posted in 3-year climate trends, Manilla NSW by

Parametric plots of smoothed climate variables at Manilla
“Drought status not clear”

Trends to May 2014

May data (orange)

Raw data for May 2014 give mixed signals on whether the drought is fading. Daily maximum temperature is now on the high limit of the normal range and rainfall again well into the “drought” range. However, other variables do not agree: skies were very cloudy, and dew point and daily temperature range were back to normal.

Fully smoothed data (red)

The spring months (SON) of 2013 are now fully smoothed, with some variables showing a drought peak in that season.
Smoothed daily maximum temperature anomaly peaked in October, reaching a record high of +1.39°, beating +1.34° in November 2009 and +1.30° in September-October 2002. Through spring the smoothed rainfall anomaly decreased; it may have reached a minimum in January. Dew point also decreased, the smoothed anomaly reaching a new record low of -4.85° in November, and likely to reach a minimum in December.
Cloudiness reached a minimum in October, and daily minimum temperature and subsoil temperature anomalies had reached maximum values earlier, in July.

Note:
Fully smoothed data – Gaussian smoothing with half-width 6 months – are plotted in red, partly smoothed data uncoloured, and raw data for the last data point in orange. January data points are marked by squares.
Blue diamonds and the dashed blue rectangle show the extreme values in the fully smoothed data record since September 1999.

Normal values are based on averages for the decade from March 1999. They appear on these graphs as a turquoise (turquoise) circle at the origin (0,0). A range of anomalies called “normal” is shown by a dashed rectangle in aqua (aqua). For values in degrees, the assigned normal range is +/-0.7°; for cloudiness, +/-7%; for monthly rainfall, +/-14 mm.

 

May 2014 cloudy with warm nights

Posted in Manilla NSW, Monthly weather by

The daily weather log

Yellow berries on a White Cedar in May.

White Cedar in May

May began cold: the 3rd was the 2nd coldest May day of this century, at 11.7°. By the 6th, the 7-day mean temperature was more than four degrees below normal. Within a week, the weather became warm and, by the 25th, the 7-day mean was more than four degrees above normal. The night of the 26th (15.3°) was the 3rd warmest May night of the century. For the first time, May had no frosts at all, and more than half the mornings were cloudy (>4/8 cloud). There were five rain days, two more than usual.

Weather log May 2014

Comparing May months

Air temperatures and the dew point were not far from normal. However, as the second graph shows, they are higher than in May months of recent years, such as 2012. Skies were extraordinarily cloudy, but the subsoil temperature was no longer high.
The total rainfall of 18.2 mm is in the 33rd percentile for May. While this is well below the long-term average of 41 mm, it is on the average for the last 15 years. Taking rainfall totals for more than one month, only the two-month total (31 mm) is a serious shortage (9th percentile). The fifteen-month total (585 mm) is in the 12th percentile. Other totals have higher percentile values, and most totals for 36 months or more are above normal. Pools still survive in Greenhatch Creek.

Climate May 2014

Data. Rainfall data is from Manilla Post Office, courtesy of Phil Pinch. Temperatures, including subsoil at 750 mm, and other data are from 3 Monash Street, Manilla.