Sydney's spell of wet weather continued during the weekend. It was a pretty horrible weekend really with strong southerly winds keeping temperatures down while there were scattered showers and mostly grey skies.
The past 3 days have had the lowest daily maximums of the year so far, with each day beating the previous mark. Saturday saw a top of 21.1C at the Airport. It only got to 20.7C yesterday and today has only reached 19.1C. This is lowest maximum since mid-November. This morning also saw the first time below 15C for the year with 13.9C at 5:50am. Of the past 6 years, this is actually the latest date for the first time below 15C.
Thursday to Sunday saw a total of 16.4mm of rain with Friday responsible for the highest daily total of 8.6mm. The monthly figure now stands at 44.4mm. As mentioned already, southerly winds were quite strong throughout the weekend. Each day from Friday to today has seen a maximum gust above 50km/h. Saturday saw the top with a south-southwesterly at 72km/h.
Tropical Cyclone Ita has charged its way south along the Queensland coast from late Friday dumping rain from Cooktown to as far south as Brisbane. Ita was downgraded to Category 4 just before crossing the coast near Cape Flattery, and further downgraded to Category 3 and then to Category 1 not long after. Ita is still classified as a Category 1 storm but it is sitting off the coast east of Rockhampton and moving in a southeasterly direction further out to sea.
As expected, strong winds and heavy rain accompanied the storm. Cape Flattery saw a strongest gust of 159km/h at 9pm on Friday. That's about 44m/s, far beyond the strongest gust ever recorded in Finland. The weather station there has been out of action since 10pm on Friday. Cooktown saw a strongest gust of 122km/h just after midnight. A total of 197.8mm fell there during the 72 hour period from 9am on the 10th.
Cooktown copped the brunt of the wind and damage is evident there with trees down and roofs torn off buildings. Flooding has been a concern in many towns further south along the coast as rivers and catchment areas swell as a result of the heavy rain. Some roads and bridges are closed and the town centre of Innisfail has been split in two. A large gallery of images from the affected regions can be found here.
On the other side of the world, Jyväskylä escaped the rain on Saturday, but Friday and Sunday saw the 2 highest daily totals of the year so far. Coincidentally, the current trend of pleasant Saturdays continued. The past 4 have actually been really nice with warm temperatures and mostly clear skies. Saturday saw the highest temperature of the month so far with 10.6C. Friday, however, saw 7.0mm at Jyväskylä Airport and the second lowest daily maximum, while Sunday saw 7.6mm.
No comments:
Post a Comment