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Either humid or calm - tricky month for drying clothes

Brett Dutschke, Saturday June 24, 2017 - 12:39 AEST

So far this winter much of southeastern Australian has either been too humid or too calm for the washing to dry as fast as it would normally at this time of year.

Melbourne, Adelaide and Canberra have all had their calmest start to winter in more than 15 years, and Canberra and Sydney their most humid start in about the same time.

Wind has been about 6km/h below average in Melbourne and Adelaide and about 3km/h below average in Canberra.

Humidity has been averaging 75 percent in Sydney compared to the June average of 66 percent. In Canberra, humidity has been just a few percent higher than normal.

Cold fronts have been much weaker than normal and as a result, high pressure systems have been the most dominant feature. This set-up has been keeping most of South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, the ACT and inland New South Wales significantly less windy than an average June.

For the NSW coast, including Sydney, it has been dry in terms of rain but moist in terms of humidity. This is largely due to a general onshore flow between the high pressure systems to the west and troughs offshore.

One small plus for drying clothes is the higher-than-normal sunshine in the not-so-windy Adelaide, Melbourne and Canberra, and relatively breezy in the cloudier-and-more-humid Sydney.

- Weatherzone

© Weatherzone 2017

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A very wet weekend for southeast Qld, northeast NSW

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