January 2020 more humid

Posted in Manilla NSW, Monthly weather by surlybond

It rained!

Weekly average temperatures were 7 deg high early in the month, normal in the third week, then 6 deg high at the end. In these hot weeks, ten days went over 40 deg.
The night of the 11th, at 28.1 deg, was extremely warm. It was the 2nd warmest on record, after 28.2 on 14/01/17.
Although the wettest day had only 22.8 mm of rain, there were 11 rain days. Other signs of moisture included 11 days with half cloud cover or more, and 9 mornings with dew points over 20 deg.

Comparing January months

Mean temperatures this month are the 2nd highest for January, being lower than last year. Subsoil temperature is normal.
All moisture indicators are higher. The early morning dew point, at 16.8 deg, is remarkably high, exceeded only in January 2006.
The rainfall total of 46.8 mm is at the 28th percentile for January, well below the average of 87 mm.

Drought

I will report separately on the on-going drought that continues to break low-rainfall records at durations of 15-months and longer.

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. Recording resumed on 20 July 2019.
My estimates of early morning dew point have drifted anomalously low. From August 2019, I use data from the Tamworth Airport published graphs.
All other data, including subsoil at 750 mm, are from 3 Monash Street, Manilla.

9Feb2020

3-year trends to January 2020

Posted in 3-year climate trends, Manilla NSW by surlybond

January much more humid

January raw anomaly data (orange)

Temperatures

Daily maximum temperature anomaly (all x-axes) high, but not now extreme: now only three degrees above 21st century normal.
Daily minimum temperature anomaly (lower left): extremely high, twice as high as the record smoothed value
Subsoil temperature anomaly (lower right): still near normal.

Moistures (moist is at the bottom)

Rainfall anomaly (upper left): no longer extremely low.
Cloudiness anomaly (upper right): back to normal.
Dew point anomaly (middle left): suddenly rather high (humid).
Daily temperature range anomaly (middle right): suddenly narrow, due to cloud.

Fully smoothed data values (red)

Smoothed anomaly values now include July of 2019. From the rather static values of the autumn, nearly all smoothed values for June began to move in the direction towards drought that seems to have persisted through spring.
There were two exceptions. Daily minimum temperature anomaly continued to fall. Subsoil temperature anomaly reached a peak value in June.

Notes:

January data points are marked by squares.

Smoothing Continue reading →

17Jan2020

December 2019: very hot and dry

Posted in Manilla NSW, Monthly weather by surlybond

Red Sun 17 Dec

After the first week, each week in December was very hot, reading up to 5.9° above normal. Both days and nights were hot, but only one record was set: 42.2° on the 21st was the hottest December day. That was well below the record hot day of 44.9° set on 11/2/17.
Twenty mornings were cloudless which was twice the usual number. Smoke from mainly coastal bushfires reduced visibility to 15 km or less from the 8th to the 25th. Early in the month, rain fell on three days, the highest reading being 12.4 mm on the first day.

Comparing December months

This month broke 21st century records for December mean monthly temperatures. The mean minimum of 18.7° just beat 18.6° of December 2009, the mean average of 27.6° easily beat 26.1° last year, while the mean maximum of 36.5° was far above last year’s 33.9°.
On balance, indicators of moisture make this the driest December of the century. Rainfall, at 19.6 mm, was lower than any but December 2006 (18.8 mm), and the dew point was equal lowest with 2013. This month had by far the fewest cloudy mornings (10%) and the widest daily temperature range (17.8°).