After two years with little or no sun-spot activity, the world's weather has gone wild. For example, Europe, the Americas, Asia and Australia have all had massive floods. In Australia's case, Lake Eyre has flooded for the second year running and the red centre is now awash in breeding birds including, amazingly, sea-gulls. And, last winter, much of Europe had heavy snowfalls and very cold weather.
Well, Australia is following that trend and we're having the coldest winter in a long time. Yesterday morning Armidale awoke to a temperature of -11 C! The day before it was -8C, although it was a mere -5C this morning. And the days are getting cooler. The last two days saw maxima of only about 10C compared with the average of 13C. And today we will be lucky to see 8C as high cloud is now blotting out the sun.
All this has been driven by a massive high pressure system whose upper levels apparently originated over Antarctica / Southern Ocean, so the air is very dry. The growing cloud is ironically tropical air in a jet stream, but I doubt it will drop any rain. Were precipitation to occur, it would almost certainly be as snow!
AS
1 comment:
I know that two weeks have passed since you posted this blog, Tony, but it is interesting to note that we in the U.K. are having an unusually dry year. In Cumbria (known for its high rainfall) a hosepipe ban has been announced! Here in Poole we have had many weeks of beautifully warm sunny weather (which is just what a holiday resort needs). I only hope that it stays like this for your visit. Richard.
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