Greetings all,
Here is this week's opinion and review of relevant weather and seasonal forecast systems produced by major global agencies.
Updated information, issued Thursday 4/4/19 covering shorter-term weather forecasts, monthly and seasonal climate forecasts, to cover cattle (and sugar) production regions on an advisory basis and as a follow-up to the Managing for Climate Workshops and similar (but other industry regions are also now included as an addition in the text). In effect, this means we are providing review information for the short, medium and seasonal (longer term) periods.
- The Madden Julian Oscillation (MJO) may be due again at the end of April.
- The 30-day average of the SOI is -5.9 (minus 5.9).
- Many coupled ocean-atmosphere models are currently indicating a renewal of El Niño/drought conditions from late southern hemisphere autumn onwards, to continue through 2019/2020. However, at this current time of the year, seasonal climate forecasts have lesser skill than from about May onwards.
- In terms of individual daily forecasts, please refer to BoM for more up-to-date forecasts on a day to day basis.
The model outputs below are obtained from a variety of sources without further comment, except that they are based purely on my opinion on the capability of various weather and climate models and based on the initiating agencies verification outputs and published manuscripts and as explained at our regional workshops.
1st week weather forecasts
Higher confidence (all values approximate).
An opinion and summary/review of a number of national and international weather (as opposed to seasonal climate) models.
Values in mm – all values approximate.
Weekly rainfall forecast totals
A review of the US COLA system.
100-over 250mm in an approx. line from the northern Kimberleys to the Top End to the top of Cape York. 5-15mm along the east coast, increasing to 70-90mm Rollingstone to Cooktown. Nil significant in remaining regions.
(Much less confidence for this period) 40-60mm from Pt Hedland to the Top End to NW Cape York, increasing to 100 to over 250mm in the Port Hedland region, and east Arnhem Land.
Weekly temperature forecast anomalies
Above normal (median) temperature anomalies in all regions with the exception of the Arnhem Land and the Charters Towers region where below normal temperatures are forecast using this system.
Seasonal Forecasts
For the longer period, the seasonal climate forecast models are indicating the following (to be updated next week):
For the April to June period: the SOI phase model for the end of March was “consistently negative”. At this time of year, this suggests close to normal rainfall probability values for the total three month period for much of northern and eastern Australia. Indeed some regions of central Queensland have above normal rainfall probability values.
The BoM ‘ACCESS’ model is currently indicating rainfall values close to the long term normal (climatology) for this period.
For the coming winter/spring period, the ECMWF forecast model is indicating low rainfall probability values for most of Australia (as El Niño redevelops).
Notably, most ocean models are indicating a return to full El Niño conditions by the end of the southern hemisphere autumn. BoM, for example, remain in ‘El Niño watch’ mode. The US Climate Prediction Center is warning of heightened risk of El Nino redevelopment for the period from late autumn 2019 until 2020.
SOI 30-day average (as at 4/4/19) is now minus 5.9 (-5.9).
Maximum and Minimum Temperatures: For most of northern Australia for the total April to June period there are high probability values of exceeding the long-term median for most regions.
MJO information (also courtesy our friends in BoM/NOAA): the MJO is due again at approx. end of April.
We are very grateful to Meat and Livestock Australia and the MLA Donor Company for funding key research projects in this area of seasonal and shorter-term forecasting and to which this output belongs.
Centre for Applied Climate Sciences
University of Southern Queensland
This Climate and Weather update has been reinstated by the Northern Australia Climate Program (NACP) with funding from MLA Donor Company, the Drought and Climate Adaptation Program (Qld Government) and the University of Southern Queensland.
NACP has climate risk advisers (climate mates) in 8 regions across northern Australia. Please reply for more information.
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