Melbourne and Victoria daily weather commentary

pretty much a similar day to yesterday, lots of sun, some cloud, a shower or 2 and a bit of wind. Nothing too exciting!

Min: 7.9 max: 15.0

Cold here today, just 8C maximum. 2.5mm in the gauge over the last day or two, a bit of drizzly stuff around the mountain today.

Didn't know where to post this.

Water storages have biggest rise since mid-December.

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25740410-661,00.html

day started clear and sunny and cold! Then there was cloud, then there was sun again, then there was cloud again and now it's clear again. Confusing day, but all those dark clouds just passed overhead and dropped nothing.

John may be able to answer this question or someone else might, apart from the slight rain shadow effect that the Brisbane Ranges have (and in some instances the northern ranges) what else (if anything) causes the dryness out here?


Min: 4.7 max: 12.9

Another 2.2mm here today, just a sprinkle at North Melbourne before lunch that I didn't even notice.

Several reasons why western Melbourne is so dry.

1. Mount Macedon and Great Dividing range to the NW blocking out significant rain events in winter and spring (which predominantly come from the NW) This is a very significant rain shadow as far as Melb area goes. Eg. Riddells Creek just 10 kilometres or so SE of here gets around 650mm a year whereas the centre of the Mount Macedon village gets around 900mm a year and higher than that the higher you go on the range. Sunbury only gets around 530-550mm a year from memory and is only a further 15km SE of Riddells Creek.

2. West of the bay, and therefore misses out on most of the showers in SW winds which is the predominant direction of unstable flow behind cold fronts and lows. West of Melbourne dries out whilst east of Melbourne picks up moisture from the bay.

3. Significant rain from the SW is further blocked out by the Otway Ranges (another rain shadow), particularly from Geelong to Werribee which makes this part of southern VIC pretty much the driest.

4. Western suburbs of Melbourne are as flat as the proverbial so absolutely no uplift from orographic effects to enhance rainfall or develop rainfall in marginal conditions. Around the You Yangs and Brisbane ranges I could imagine they pick up a few more showers here and there than areas on the plains thanks to localised uplift.

5. Not 100% on this one, but I'm pretty sure as warm northerlies descend down the southern slopes of the Great Dividing range they usually become warmer still, kind of a foehn wind effect. That's why on hot northerly days in Spring and Summer places like Avalon, Laverton etc. usually are several degrees warmer than Melbourne CBD and the winds tend to be stronger due to the absence of trees or hills, the area is extremely exposed in other words. This combination of heat and wind causes the land to dry out more west of Melbourne therefore the area appears brown and barren most of the time.

Not trying to rub things in Tony but that is pretty much an honest assessment of the micro climate of the western suburbs of Melbourne. I can imagine the frustration weather enthusiasts have living there but it is only a short and easy drive away from places that get heavier rain more often and snow and of course some of the best storms can develop west of Melbourne in Summer outbreaks.

not rubbing it it at all, it is an excellent example of a micro climate, and living and growing up here, I have always been curious about our own mini micro climate. I have called this part of Melbourne, out own little desert, my friends in perth always talk about the showers we get and I always say it never happens!!!

Am a westy through and through, and while the dryness never really bothered me when we used to get average 500-600mm of rain, but now when you could almost say averages have been closer to 350-450mm, starts to get a bit desperate!!!

Am sure other westies can comment as well!

Oh and when they say showers in melbourne, surely the BOM could change a forecast for laverton to mainly fine or even just 'a shower or 2' instead of showers! Because Melbourne's forecast are really not indicative of our weather on those showery days.

And talking about heat, Feb 7 was 46 in Melb, 47 here 47.5 in Laverton and 48 in Avalon.

Brrrrrr, morning all. Currently on 1.2 degrees and the moon is shining brightly low in the western sky, going to be a frosty old morning. I'm off to Canberra for work this morning, temps there are 0.0

Certainly is fresh. Down to -0.6C still. Full iced car this morning.

Let us know what's happening in Canberra Lily.

3.1C in FC overnight comfortably sat above the inversion. Anticipate a minimum of about 2C - we usually have our minimum at about 9am in winter as the sun doesn't come over the hill until (about) then.

clear blue skies all day today quite a cold start to quite a cold day. Amzing how the heat island effect, effected the overnight low in the city last night. 7.6 in the city but regular 1's and 2's in most suburbs!

Min: 2.6 max: 12.5

Currently -1.0°C at Clyve's and -0.6°C at my place in Trentham....could be a night of broken sleep.......making sure pipes don't freeze...

You should consider a recirculating pump.

Not sure that the dozen nights or so I'm likely to get are worth that - I found last week that if I leave the hot water tap in the shower not turned off hard, that it starts running at about 3am and that's enough to get me out of strife...still learning about what this house will and won't put up with on cold night...I think I've foound all the joints - the toilet's now ok, the cold water's fine.......

1.2C at 8:30pm, 4C at around 9pm and now back to 1.2C. No cloud cover or wind at any stage.

Weird.

Back to 4C, northerly wind is the culprit. Looks like we'll be spared from a frost here tomorrow morning. (I used to like them but now I hate them, cause more trouble than they're worth).

5am in Trentham saw +0.6°C at my place, -2.6°C at Clyve's. A brilliant white frost turning my dark grey roof white like snow......by 6am it had started to 'warm' (if you could call it that and Clyve had -2.0°C. Woodend was -2.1°C and the Macedon exit a few kms down the road was +4.9°C. Melbourne cars have a very thick layer of frost on them across through Brunswick & Clifton Hill with an air temp currently of +3°C.

Comfortably above the inversion in Ferny Creek with a balmy 4.2C at home at 6am. Dipped to 4C by 7pm (our max yesterday was just 8.1C) last night but then rose around mid night to 6C for a few hours then back down to 4C around 5am. The warming was associated with a slight pick up in the northerly at our place (I'm guessing a mainly katabatic one).

The parks around the Yarra were white this morning which doesn't happen often.

-2.6 here this morning making it one of the coldest in a long while. Laverton had it's coldest morning since 1997 and Coldstream since 2005.

Yeah being close to the river here it would have dipped down to -3.C this morning. Oddly enough it didnt feel like -3 when I left for work, was quite mild dare say. Though my windscreen had different opinions LOL kept freezing up between the buckets of water. Sensational day though!

I hate the cold mornings, it was absolutely foul. Getting the water to melt the frost was difficult. I ran the car for 10 minutes before entering in!! I wore a scarf and little did I realise I dipped it into the bucket and got in the car and had a puddle on my pants. Not happy Jan

Much milder tomorrow down to just 1C here tonight.

what a morning!!! Below freezing out here. While I registered -0.4, I am going to guess it was colder than that because the water in my makeshift birdbath was frozen! Also the ice on the cars that were still parked in the street looked very thick! But again today goes to show how Melbourne itself may never reach below 0 again with temps up to 5 degrees cooler in some suburbs!

Spent the day in daylesford, where it was sunny with some high cloud and a bit of a breeze. All you Trentham people might agree with that statement!

got back here this arvo and just a very slight breeze blowing now.

min: -0.4(may have been colder!) max: 14.6

You mustn't have had much sleep Tony at least I slept in till 11am, morning what morning! at Karl Had a blackout in our part of Ferny Creek from 2.30pm to 4pm this arvo, don't know why. Bit cold without power

I reckon it is colder tonight out my way than last night, despite the temps suggesting otherwise.

Twas a magic day today. Counting down the days til Lake Eildon and a possible wet weekend

Amazing frost here in prahran this morning, i recorded 0.6C.

My partner was at Mt Macedon and he had 0C to 5.9C with a crunchy white frost that lasted all day in the shady spots. It was also just 1.8C inside our place up there last night and this morning

It is already down to 7.2C in prahran, hope we get another morning close to zero