Posts tagged with "weather"
Friday, 1. January 2010, 22:57:58
Narrabri, weather
Today is the seventh day in a row of good soaking rain.
It's quite unprecedented to have so much rain without it turning into a flood. So far the bulk of the rain has been in town and downstream with not so much in the mountains. It's quite possible of course that we could get a huge inflow from the Pilliga coinciding with another flush from Boggabri or Mount Kaputar and the situation could turn around quite rapidly. It might be time to dig out the canoes and inflatable boats, just in case 
I've been observing the weather and keeping records since we moved to Narrabri in 1991. I went back through my records looking for long stretches of rainy days. The current rain period is very unusual. As of 5 pm last night we had had 6 days (now into the 7th and it's raining heavily) and in that time we have had 121 mm.
In November 2008 we had 10 days with a one day break in the middle for a total of 92 mm
In January 1999 we had 6 days in a row with a total of 99 mm.
In February 1998 we had 6 days for a total of 119 mm
In January 1997 we had 5 days with a total of 209 mm.
Nothing else in the last 20 years comes close to matching the length of this event or the consistency of the rain. It will be interesting to see if we end up exceeding the rain of January 2009.
Margaret's thinking of buying a clothes dryer, but I'd be guessing they are all sold out.
Sunday, 27. December 2009, 23:40:21
Narrabri, life, rain, weather
Last night the long-anticipated rain really set in with a vengeance. We had it all torrential rain coming in wave after wave, thunder, lightning, wind.
Margaret and I got up to watch it teem down- it happens when you live in the country.
This morning we were surprised to see the creek at flood levels, starting to lap onto the football fields on the other side. Just down from us there is a low bridge with a path and there isn't much space for the water to flow so it's backing up a bit. The lake has some water in it but it will take a lot more rain yet to fill it.
This is the view from our back yard this morning:
This is the lake-- in normal times the water would stretch right up to where I was standing. Still, it's a lot happier than the dry dirt of a few days ago.
Wednesday, 23. December 2009, 06:42:00
Narrabri, weather
Here is the rain outlook for the next 10 days. Looks to me like it could be quite wet over much of northern NSW. Narrabri is right there in the red area.
Tuesday, 22. December 2009, 01:21:23
Narrabri, weather, christmas
Spotted on the otherwise serious
Narrabri Weather Network
The grey skies have brought us much joy this morning!
Monday, 21. December 2009, 22:17:59
Narrabri, weather, Australia
We woke up during the night to the sounds of thunder and heavy rain. We had to get up to look.
By 9 am we have had about 40 mm and there are still storms around, It's a measure of how dry the last few months have been that we get so excited about such a small quantity of rain. On the other hand, our average for the whole month of December is just 57 mm.
Our creek has gone from being a dusty dry bed to looking again like a creek. I will check out the lonely pelican later in the day- I'm sure he is very pleased with himself this morning.
Our water tank has gone from near empty to 3/4 full overnight-- about 7,000 litres running off our roof and into the tank in a few hours.
For farmers in the region and bushfire fighters still controlling the fires up around Bingara and Bundarra this would have to be the best Christmas present ever.
Thank you Lord. You send rain at the right time.
Wednesday, 9. December 2009, 11:51:09
Narrabri, life, spiritual warfare, weather
...
We had a particularly powerful prayer meeting tonight even though there were just three of us.
One thing we were praying into was the spiritual forces that seem to be influencing the weather lately. Not only has it been particularly hot, showers and potential cool fronts have gone out of their way to avoid Narrabri.
As we were praying I had a revelation about some "strange" people who visited Narrabri several months ago. Although they anticipated that the church here would welcome them with open arms as the end-time prophets preparing the way for the establishment of the New Jerusalem in this region (yes, really), we made sure that all the churches were fore-warned. Tonight I felt that they may have cursed the land as they left and that this was affecting the weather. So we prayed about that, breaking the curses and the power of witchcraft.
A little while later, Margaret saw a black snake near the door of the church. She screamed and then called Tim and James while I kept watch- I wasn't going to get too close without shoes on!
James was the hero, flushing the red-bellied black snake into the open and then killing it with great bravery and skill (and a hoe).
Interesting connection that a snake comes into the building while we are praying into this spiritual warfare area. It could be a coincidence, but I think not.
Sunday, 22. November 2009, 06:26:12
weather, climate, science
OK so it's the weekend and we have serious bushfires burning and a "record" heatwave.
But you would have thought that the media which is normally so quick to jump on any angle of "the most important issue facing our planet ever" (which depending on the day would be either climate change or the fate of some footballer's knee), you would have thought that someone in the media might have picked up the fact that one of the two top most prestigious climate research institutions in the world has been caught making up data and bullying scientific journal publishers to ensure that they toe the party line.
And with the Liberal Party undergoing frantic discussions about whether to support the Government's Emissions Trading Scheme even as we speak you would think somebody other than bloggers might be putting this little titbit to air.
And given the way the ABC especially runs with every crazy little story about the doom of climate change-- my personal favourite one was the Melbourne vet who claimed that climate change was making stray cats breed more often and that Melbourne would soon be overrun by moggies, oblivious to the fact that Sydney and Brisbane which are already much warmer than Melbourne don't seem to have that problem-- you would expect that somebody might be starting to ask some searching questions about the whole deal.
No... the carbon heating must go on. After all the science is settled, and even if it's all been a total fabrication nothing will get in the way. Journalists will continue to resist the publishing of genuine information if it runs against the established ideology.
Maybe, just maybe, somebody later in the week will tell the Liberals it's time to act like an Opposition and actually oppose something on the basis of principle.
And maybe somebody will whisper in Penny Wong's ear "the emperor has no clothes."
Then possibly we might wake up to the fact that Australia has always been mostly hot and dry with extremes of weather, that England has always been a tad damp and America prone to hurricanes--long before climate change and global warming were invented.
Monday, 24. August 2009, 07:45:08
weather
No doubt people in the media will be seizing on the high temperatures of today as evidence of global warming. One of the ironies of the global warming hysteria is that higher than normal temperatures are offered as "proof", while record lows are dismissed with the retort "weather isn't climate." I guess that's what you call an asymmetric argument.
I've been keeping more-or-less daily records since we arrived in Narrabri in 1991 and I just went back through my database, sorting through the August maxima. Our long term average maximum is 22 degrees. Here are the top dozen temperatures:
24/8/09 32
23/8/09 31
23/8/95 31
24/8/95 30
27/8/95 30
30/8/95 28
29/8/04 28
21/8/95 28
16/8/96 28
30/8/08 28
26/8/94 28
31/8/02 28
According to weatherzone.com the highest ever August temperature at Gunnedah was 31.1 in 1880. Given that temperatures in Narrabri are typically 1 or 2 degrees warmer than Gunnedah on any given day, that would indicate a temperature of about 32-33 degrees here on that day.
Of course all of this means absolutely nothing, but it is interesting nonetheless.
Wednesday, 10. June 2009, 23:30:15
life, weather, climate
After a week in tropical Rockhampton and Yeppoon, we drove home yesterday to chilly Narrabri.
It wasn't really that warm up north, as everyone was complaining about the cold. In our meetings in Yeppoon we had the air conditioners running as the room was getting too warm for some. Margaret and I found ourselves sitting right in front of the AC so we found ourselves grabbing our jumpers.
So today in Narrabri, just 10 hours drive from tropical Rocky, we've had a severe frost and our hot water pipe froze for the first time this year.
The minimum this morning was -2 but it's now a brisk 7 degrees (C). The hot water is running again, so I think I'll go off and have a nice warm shower.
Australia is certainly a land of contrasts and variety! Usually all at the same time.
Monday, 9. February 2009, 06:24:12
weather, Australia
Today was our first taste of the heatwave that tormented the southern states over the last couple of weeks. We've had consistently high temperatures (37-39 deg.) for most of the last couple of weeks, but we've been spared the extremes that Melbourne, Adelaide and then Sydney endured. The cool change that brought relief to those places has now pushed the hot air here
So today our temperature reached 43 degrees at our place (42.6 to be more precise). 
I thought that this might have been a record, but was surprised to find it's not that uncommon. Over the last 15 years that I've been recording temperatures here, it hasn't exceeded 43 degrees but we have reached it on 6 occasions- 9/1/94, 28/11/97, 13/1/99, 26/12/03, 7/1/04 and 9/2/09.
Tomorrow is expected to be about 38 degrees and then the cool change will kick in and we will be down to high 20s to mid 30s for the rest of the week. 
Tuesday, 23. September 2008, 07:20:06
weather
We have just had another 9 mm of rain today, taking our total for this month to 46 mm (the September average is 42 mm). This is the first time since February that our actual rain has exceeded the long term average in any month.
Monday, 2. June 2008, 10:25:25
Narrabri, weather
This is the latest rainfall radar picture from the Moree weather station.
Narrrabri is near the bottom- centre of the picture.
The rain sounds great on the roof!
Saturday, 17. May 2008, 22:04:55
weather, Narrabri, humour
Last night we had some rain- which made us think questions like "What's that strange noise on the roof?" Then it turned very cold.
The rain was fairly early in the evening, then it cleared away.
Later Margaret said, "It's been raining again", to which I replied, "It can't have been. There are no clouds."
But she was adamant. The ground was wet again so that meant it had been raining.
Then we remembered another phenomenon we don't have here lately. Dew.
You know the drought has been going on too long when adults forget what dew is!
Monday, 28. April 2008, 07:27:31
weather, climate
After reports of record April snow falls in Victoria on the weekend, record cold conditions are spreading north into NSW.
Today the ABC is reporting that Bathurst and Orange have today experienced their lowest April maximums on record.... about 7 degrees.. brrr!
At this rate we can expect snow in Narrabri for the first time ever this July. Now if we could persuade Al Gore to visit town it would guarantee blizzards-- there is a long recognised pattern that wherever Al turns up to promote his theories about warming, it inevitably triggers low temperatures.
Maybe it's time to order in snow chains and anti-freeze.
Saturday, 22. December 2007, 06:27:15
weather
We've had 20mm of rain today until 5 pm and some showers since.
Some places such as Coonabarabran and Ungarie have experienced flooding.
Oh, and it looks like the Bay of Bengal theory holds water (sorry about that pun!). There has been something of an urban myth that heavy rain in the Bay of Bengal results in rain in western NSW about 6 weeks later. They had a terrible cyclone in Bangladesh about 6 weeks ago and I've been saying ever since that rain or otherwise around Christmas time would be the test of the theory.
I don't know how it works because I always thought that the northern and southern hemispheres don't have much mixing between them, but apparently there is some weather link.
Another downpour has just begun as I write.
Needless to say, tonight's "Living Nativity" will not be happening.
Wednesday, 18. July 2007, 23:48:43
weather, climate
No showers this morning, due to our hot water pipes freezing up. That's the first time in over 10 years... although Josh tells us the same thing happened on Tuesday when we weren't home.
Meanwhile according to this article on Monday night the temperature at Thredbo was colder than at Australia's Antarctic Base- that's cold.
It looks like after a period of very mild winters, coinciding roughly with the extended drought, we look like getting back to "normal".
So much for climate change
Blessings
Keith
UPDATE: Just read this on the ABC:
Records tumble as winter bites in Qld
Weather records continue to tumble in Queensland with parts of the state shivering in the coldest morning of the year.
Temperatures well below freezing are being reported at many centres in the south-east including the Darling Downs, the granite belt, Amberley and Brisbane.
At 6am, the temperature at Applethorpe on the granite belt was -7.3, Warwick recorded -5 and Dalby and Oakey -4.
This morning, Townsville recorded its longest cold snap in 66 years, with continuous minimums below 12 degrees.
The weather bureau's Greg Connors is predicting there is more to come.
"Not since 1941 have we had such a long cold spell and we think as Friday and Saturday approaches it's going to get even colder," he said.
"There's another burst of cold air coming up so we're getting back down to single figures again."
Monday, 18. June 2007, 09:49:31
world-view, weather, climate
From www.smh.com.au
NSW braces for another storm
Meteorologists are warning coastal communities of NSW to brace for the third major storm of the month, with further damaging winds and torrential rain expected from Tuesday.
As I read this, it is pouring down with rain here.
With very cold June temperatures, no doubt someone will be thinking all these storms are down to global warming 
Meanwhile, this is the month that 3 years ago that our very own mad scientist Tim Flannery predicted that Sydney would run out of water- in fact the Sydney dams are expected to rise above 45% capacity for the first time in over three years.
Thursday, 1. March 2007, 06:29:54
weather, prayer, grace
Since our prayer meeting for rain last Sunday, the rain has continued to fall every evening. We have now had 70 mm (not quite 3 inches to the metrically challenged) so far this week with more rain coming.
The lake has water in it again, although it's far from full, and the creek is almost up to overflowing its banks.
If this keeps up even the farmers will be smiling
Praise God from whom all blessings flow!
Thursday, 1. February 2007, 09:06:35
weather
So it hasn't forgotten how to rain!
We had a thunderstorm this afternoon which produced 3 mm of rain and it's being followed up with much more steady rain.
I looked on the Weather Bureau's radar page and we are right in the middle of a rain band stretching over 200 km.
Send it down Lord!
It's been so dry and hot that even increasing the normal amount of watering that I do through summer isn't enough!
As they used to say at Toronto: "More Lord" (please)
This is probably why:
http://abc.net.au/weather/img/web_sat_aus_latest.jpg
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