Jane Bunn: Damaging winds on the way to QLD, NSW and VIC

The Indian Ocean entered the positive phase of its dipole around the middle of August and should remain that way for the rest of spring.

This is the ‘El Nino’ of the Indian Ocean (but it doesn’t have a fancy name), encouraging drier than average weather in Australia. 

El Nino (which is the fancy name for the positive phase of the Pacific Ocean) is slowly building, set to also encourage drier than average weather in Australia - this one for spring and summer. 

Above: A positive Indian Ocean Dipole began in mid August and should continue for the remainder of spring. 

Drier than average weather is brought about by a reduction in moisture available from the tropics. In recent years, excessive tropical moisture helped produce widespread flooding and reduced the amount of extreme heat we experienced. 

Now, we are flipping to the other side of the coin and the reduction in tropical moisture leads to other phenomena too… and we’ll see one of these in action in south-west QLD, western NSW and the ranges of VIC on Thursday (September 7).

Less moisture produces stronger winds, and here are the areas at risk of damaging gusts:

Above: Yellow areas indicate the risk of damaging wind gusts on Thursday, September 7.

It’s important to know exactly when these winds are likely to strike, and you can find that sort of detailed information at janesweather.com. 

I’ve selected Wilcannia, NSW, as an example here, and you can easily see how the wind rapidly strengthens during the early morning, and rises above 80km/h from 10am. It may peak over 100km/h between 1pm and 3pm, before slowly reducing during the evening (but remaining strong until Friday night). 

Above: The exact hours those damaging winds gusts are possible can be found at janesweather.com.

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After this system passes through, there’s a large, cold pool of air set to cross south-eastern Australia on Friday. Wintry hail and low level snow - a proper cold blast. Even south-east QLD should feel a chill in the air over the weekend.

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