- WEATHER
Australia
- National
- New South Wales
- Victoria
- Queensland
- Western Australia
- South Australia
- Tasmania
- ACT
- Northern Territory
Long Range Forecasts
- WARNINGS
- RADAR
- SATELLITE
- MAPS & CHARTS
- LONG RANGE
Long Range Forecasts
- CLIMATE
Climate Indicators
- NEWS
Weather News
Australia's nine biggest weather and climate events of 2019
Ben Domensino, Tuesday December 31, 2019 - 13:44 AEDT
As 2019 draws to a close, we look back at some of the biggest weather and climate related events of the year in Australia.
- Drought -
Large areas of Australia arrive at the end of 2019 with significant rainfall deficiencies that have been building up during the last several years. In 2019, these deficiencies were exacerbated by one Australia's driest and warmest years on record.
The drought has seen water storages declining and crops failing across large swathes of the country this year. Many rural areas and some urban regions are on water restrictions as catchment levels continue to decline. In early December, water storages in the northern Murray Darling Basin had reached seven percent of capacity.
Image: Warragamba Dam in early December 2019.
This drought also laid the foundations for some of the other big events of 2019: bushfires and dust storms.
- Bushfires -
While bushfires happen in Australia every year, this season has been particularly bad in NSW. As of December 30th, more than 900 homes had been destroyed by fires in NSW so far this season. The state faced more challenging weather on the final day of the year as hot and blustery winds caused severe to extreme fire danger ratings across some of the state's existing fire grounds.
This season has also seen large fires burning in other states and territories across the country. The smoke from these bushfires has been detected by satellites passing over New Caledonia, New Zealand and even as far as South America.
Image: An arc of smoke from fires in eastern Australia stretches across the Pacific Ocean on November 12th, 2019.
Earlier in the year, fires scorched hundreds of thousands of hectares in remote parts of Tasmania during the state's driest January on record.
- Dust storms -
Depleted soil moisture and sparse vegetation over outback Australia have led to frequent dust storms in southern and eastern parts of the country this year.
In February, a large dust storm swept over parts of Queensland, NSW and Victoria before crossing the Tasman Sea and reaching New Zealand. Like our bushfire smoke, this was one of many dust storms that traversed the Tasman Sea in 2019.
Another large plume of dust could be seen by satellites as it swept across eastern Australia in November. By this point in the year, each wave of dust was accompanied by blustery winds that fanned bushfires burning in eastern Australia.
Image: Dust and smoke being ejected off Australia's east coast on November 7th, 2019.
- Record heat -
A standout feature of 2019 was the heat. The year as a whole will be one of Australia's warmest on record. January and March were both the warmest on record for the country and February, July, September and October all ranked among Australia's five warmest respective months on record based on maximum temperatures.
Australia also registered its highest average daily maximum temperature on record twice during December, on two consecutive days. Impressively the second day was one degree warmer than the first.
Image: Australia's area averaged maximum temperatures on December 18th, 2019. This was Australia warmest day on record based on the national average maximum temperature of 41.9 degrees. Source: Bureau of Meteorology.
More locally, new monthly maximum temperature records were also set during December at SA's Nullarbor (49.9C) and in March at SA's Emu Creek Station (48.5C). On January 16th, Borrona Downs in NSW registered an overnight low of 36.6 degrees, setting a new national high minimum temperature record for any month.
- Sudden stratospheric warming -
One of the most notable meteorological events of 2019 was a sudden stratospheric warming episode over the South Pole.
Image: Modelled temperature at the 10hPa level of the atmosphere above the South Pole on August 30th, 2019. The red/purple area shows the region of sudden stratospheric warming.
This phenomenon refers to an abrupt rise in air temperature within the stratosphere, tens of kilometres above Antarctica. The flow-on effects of this rare event caused a prolonged negative phase of the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) between mid-October and late-December. This lengthy spell of negative SAM in late spring and early summer was responsible for a period of unusually cool weather in far southeastern Australia and abnormally warm and dry weather in eastern Australia. This weather caused a noticeably cold start to summer in the nation's southeast and helped fuel the bushfires in eastern Australia towards the end of 2019.
- Outback flooding -
While the absence of rain dominated headlines in 2019, some parts of Australia saw prolific rain early in the year. One of the standout rain events of 2019 occurred when a monsoon low meandered around northern Queensland in late January and early February. This event saw Townsville receive 1052.8mm of rain during the seven days ending on February 4th, smashing their previous seven-day record of 886.2mm, with data available back to 1888.
A month later, two tropical cyclones - Veronica and Trevor - brought widespread rain to parts of WA, the NT and Queensland.
The combined rain form these two events transformed outback Queensland as vegetation burst to life across the previously parched state. The water from these two rain events eventually flow into central Australia where it spilled into Lake Eyre between April and June.
Floodwater flowing into Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre during the last 3 weeks, leaving behind trails of fresh vegetation along recently flooded river systems. Credit: NASA Aqua/MODIS pic.twitter.com/oMNFTVUZkY
— Ben Domensino (@Ben_Domensino) April 15, 2019
- Indian Ocean Dipole -
One of the main broad-scale climate drivers behind Australia's hot and dry weather in 2019 was a strongly positive Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD). A positive IOD is a pattern of sea surface temperatures in the Indian Ocean that restricts the amount of moisture in the air over Australia.
The IOD adopted a positive pattern from late May and persisted until late December, reaching a notably strong peak in October. While IOD events usually dissipate in late spring, the strength of this episode allowed it to persist well into summer. The prolonged and strong nature of this year's positive IOD helped worsen the drought and allowed bushfires to thrive in late spring and early summer.
Image: Indian Ocean Dipole index showing the persistently positive vales from late May to December 2019, with a strong peak in October. Source: Bureau of Meteorology.
- Snow -
Despite widespread and unprecedented warmth in some parts of the country in 2019, Australia's alps had a bumper ski season. The peak snow depth at Spencers Creek in NSW was 228.8cm in late August. This was the third highest snow depth at the site during the last two decades. There were also periods of heavy snow in central NSW in the middle of the year, with snow even falling at times in southern Queensland.
Image: Spencers Creek snow depths in 2019 and 2018. Source: Snowy Hydro
- Category Five -
March was an active month for Tropical Cyclones, with Savannah, Trevor and Veronica all forming in Australia's area of responsibility. Trevor and Veronica both directly affected northern Australia and Veronica became the only category five tropical cyclone of Australia's 2018/19 tropical cyclone season.
Image: Tropical Cyclones Veronica and Trevor on March 22nd, 2019.
According to the Bureau of Meteorology, Veronica caused significant disruption to the mining and offshore oil industries in the north of WA, making it one of the state's costliest weather events in history.
- Weatherzone
© Weatherzone
2019
Enter a postcode or town name for local weather, or text to search the site. » advanced search
A digger's letter from snowbound Gallipoli
08:00 AEST In weather terms, the Anzacs at Gallipoli copped it all – from parched, scorching summers to freezing winters as weather systems with origins in the Russian Arctic surged southwards over Turkey.
- 15:39 AEST Summery Sydney, wintry Melbourne
- 13:00 AEST Rainfall to soak some parched areas of WA
- 10:33 AEST Tassie snow, Melbourne temps go low
- 16:40 AEST Australia's tropical cyclone season coming to an end
Help with Farmonline Weather
