Moments of Manilla’s 12-monthly Rainfall

Posted in Australian Climate, Climate Change, Manilla NSW, Rainfall from 1883 by

Manilla 12-monthly rainfall history: Four moments

REVISED, WITH MORE PRECISE DATA
Supersedes the post “Moments of Manilla’s Annual Rainfall Frequency” (15 November 2017). This post includes twelve times as much data.[See Note below: “Data handling”]

Comparing all four moments of the frequency-distributions

Yearly rainfall for Manilla, NSW, has varied widely from decade to decade, but it is not only the mean amounts that have varied. Three other measures have varied, all in different ways.

I based the graph on 125-month (decadal) sub-populations of the 134-year record. I plotted data for every month, at the middle month of each sub-population.
I analysed each sub-population as a frequency-distribution, to give values of the four moments: mean (drawn in indigo), variance (drawn in orange), skewness (drawn in green) and kurtosis (drawn in blue).

[For more about the moments of frequency-distributions, see the post: “Kurtosis, Fat Tails, and Extremes”.]

Each trace of a moment measure seems to have a pattern: they are not like random “noise”. Yet each trace is quite unlike the others.

Twenty-first century values are on the right. They are remarkable in three of the four moments. First, the mean rainfall (indigo) stays near the long-term mean, which has seldom happened before. By contrast, two moments are now near historical extremes: variance (orange) is very low and kurtosis (blue) very positive. Skewness (green) is rather negative.

To my knowledge, such a result has not been observed or predicted, or even suspected, anywhere.

[Note. The main difference from the earlier 4-moment graph based on more sparse data is that skewness does not trend downward.]

Manilla 12-monthly rainfall history: Mean

The mean 12-monthly rainfall (the first moment)

The first moment of the frequency-distribution of 12-monthly rainfall is the mean, or average. It measures of the amount of rain.

As I have shown before, the rainfall was low in the first half of the 20th century, and high in the 1890’s, 1950’s and 1970’s. Rainfall crashed in 1900 and again in 1980.

Manilla 12-monthly rainfall history: Variance

12-monthly rainfall variance (the second moment)

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April 2018 very warm and sunny

Posted in Manilla NSW, Monthly weather by
Gum tree

Schoolyard Lemon-scented Gum

Warm spells several degrees above normal persisted until late in the month. Then normal temperature returned.
While no day went over 35°, thirteen days went over 30°, which was a record. ANZAC Day, at 27.3°, was 3° warmer than usual. That was much the same as last year, but not nearly as warm as in 2002 (28.7°).
A record 25 nights were warmer than 10°. There were no frosts, the coldest night (the 29th) being 5.2°.
There were only three rain days, with the highest reading of 10.2 mm on the 20th. The number of cloudless mornings (16) was a new record, beating April 2001 (15).

Weather log for April 2018

Comparing April months

As in March, so in April, this very warm dry month matched the same month in 2016. The three highest mean temperatures for April months were: in 2018, 20.7°; in 2005, 20.6°; and in 2016, 20.5°. For mean daily maximum temperatures, however, 2005 was the warmest, at 29.5°. April 2018 claims the record highest mean minimum temperature of 12.5°, beating April 2014, which had 12.2°.
The rainfall total of 17.8 mm was at the 31st percentile, well below the average (40 mm). In 2018, rainfall has been below normal in January, March and April. However, serious rainfall shortages below the 10th percentile are still seen only in the medium term: the 60-month total of 2780 mm is at the 8th percentile, and the 72-month total of 3370 mm is at the 6th percentile.

Climate in April months

Data. A Bureau of Meteorology automatic rain gauge operates in the museum yard. From 17 March 2017, 9 am daily readings are published as Manilla Museum, Station 55312.  These reports use that rainfall data when it is available.  The gauge, which had last reported on 24 September 2017, came on line again on the 16th of March.

All data, including subsoil at 750 mm, are from 3 Monash Street, Manilla.

3-year trends to April 2018

Posted in 3-year climate trends, Manilla NSW by

Hot and sunny

3-year trends to April 2018

April raw anomaly data (orange)

Raw temperature anomaly values for April 2018 were very high for daily maxima, daily minima and subsoil. Rather low moisture was shown by the rainfall and daily temperature range anomalies, while cloudiness was very low (sunny days), but dew point was near normal.

 Fully smoothed data (red)

In the latest fully-smoothed data, for October 2017, while rainfall anomaly continued to move up its graph towards dryness, the other three moisture anomalies (cloudy days, dew point, and daily temperature range) had just begun to move down towards wetness.
For temperatures, both daily maximum anomaly and daily minimum anomaly were rising rapidly. Subsoil temperature anomaly continued the rapid fall from its peak value (normal) in June 2017.

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.

 * Normal values for rainfall are based on averages for the 125 years beginning 1883.

March 2018 very warm indeed

Posted in Manilla NSW, Monthly weather by
Acacia salicina

Young Cooba

Eight days went over 35° this March, beaten only by nine days in March 2016. The 19th (38.6°) was the fifth hottest March day of the new century. Weekly mean temperatures rose to 4.6° above normal by the 18th, and remained almost as high beyond the end of the month.
There were seven rain days, with the highest reading of 16.5 mm (est.) coming early in the month.

Weather log for March 2018

Comparing March months

Average temperatures this month very nearly match those of the record-breaking March 2016. They are only 0.1° lower! Moisture variables are also similar: rather dry, in stark contrast to the sogginess of March 2017.

The rainfall total of 25.6 mm (est.) was at the 40th percentile, well below the average (53 mm). Serious rainfall shortages are seen only in the medium term: the 60-month total of 2770 mm (8th percentile) and the 72-month total of 3410 mm (9th percentile).

Climate in March months

Data. A Bureau of Meteorology automatic rain gauge operates in the museum yard. From 17 March 2017, 9 am daily readings are published as Manilla Museum, Station 55312.  These reports use that rainfall data when it is available.  The gauge, which had last reported on 24 September 2017, came on line again on the 16th of March. However, not all later days have readings reported.

All data, including subsoil at 750 mm, are from 3 Monash Street, Manilla.

3-year trends to March 2018

Posted in 3-year climate trends, Manilla NSW by

Hot and rather dry

3-year trends to March 2018.

March raw anomaly data (orange)

March 2018 was more like January than February. Day and night temperature anomalies were high. Moisture anomalies retreated somewhat from very low values. Subsoil temperature moved back from low to normal.

 Fully smoothed data (red)

In the latest fully-smoothed data, for September 2017, temperatures, which had been static, began to increase. On the other had, moisture anomalies, which had been moving up the graphs towards drought, became static.

Earlier, the month of February 2017 marked a sharp reversal of trend in climate anomalies. Daily maximum temperature anomaly peaked. Most anomalies (not rainfall) retraced in March and April the values of January and December. The curvature of the trace (relative to daily maximum temperature anomaly) kept the same sense after April 2107 as before December 2016. For subsoil temperature anomaly, the trend reversal came four months later, in June 2017.

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.

 * Normal values for rainfall are based on averages for the 125 years beginning 1883.