Victoria: Traditional Winter Westerly #1. July 25th - August 5th 2009.

Seems like another line of showers are arriving from the west. Not sure if it will dissapate or not though.

I would call it again Springlike here in Melbourne, a bit windy at times and then a heavy shower which cooled down the air a bit. But definately not winter like here!

A few showers at work (St Kilda Road) today but it remained dry in Cranbourne. Still need 7mm's to reach the monthly average, may just fall short I think.

Bit surprised by the intensity and spread of the showers today. Nearly 10mm in the catchments and a few places in central parts up to 5mm. Unfortunately Ferny Creek picked a gap in the band and only got 1.4mm... still 6mm to the monthly average , while further north about 5mm around Mt Dandenong.

Still a plenty more fronts to sneak through in this sequence - looks like one every (about) 36 hours through to mid next week.

Yeah driving home from Mansfield this evening it poured from about Molesworth through to Kinglake. Not exactly isolated showers

another 2mm so 9mm for the day awesome

Should of also mentioned that last night we had lightning/thunder about. Was a good night to watch it too.

Got 2mm in the gauge. If we can average 1 or 2mm every day for this westerly sequence the totals will start to accumulate. Much better setup than having a massive blocking high right over the top of us or out in the Tasman, at least we see some decent moisture and showers about for a prolonged period before the pattern breaks down and hopefully we see a return to stronger systems and less zonal.

Pretty sparse shower activity at present but there is a cold front developing later through Bass Strait later which will increase showers over the coast tending scattered inland for a period.

Had 2.2mm yesterday from showers.

Ended up with 1.5mm in Ferny Creek. Bit lower than expected as we picked a hole in the band.

BTW the fronts on Thursday and Sunday are now looking a little more impressive.

If we can score SW winds for a period out of each front we may get 5-15mm out of it across E Melbourne.

just got 3.5mm from a shower! Very solid at times. Fantastic timing just on nightfall too. Will be a lovely wet night

Not doing too well from this westerley flow so far, some showers just passed to the south of us looking at the radar, still no rain here from this setup.

After reading Adon's post I went and checked, we've had 1.5 mm here as well - and I thought it was the steak sizzling, it musta been raining then! lol

Quite a drizzly morning here and over the hills. Should see a few more showers today. Perhaps up to 3mm.

Ended up with 1.3mm overnight. Better than nothing, but this system is just struggling to get going for us in Ferny Creek (just 3mm in total for the event). Still - good stuff for the catchments with Baw Baw on 26mm and rising and Mt Buller on 32mm.

The unstable pattern is set to continue for days and days - tomorrow's front looks like it will pack a little more punch, and then weaker fronts Saturday/Sunday. Monday's looks the best of the lot - EC has this standing up (with pressures dropping to ~1000hPa in southern Vic and a good burst of rain/showers. Also cold enough for snow below 1000m .

PS hard to make out, but MESO-LAPS has a weak trough coming through this arvo which might kick things off a bit.

Misty rain here this morning nothing showing on radar.Had 2.5 mm rain yesterday and another 2mm today so far.

Hi all, just moved to this forum from the other one. Seems to be more discussion here now!

Very boring weather - but GFS seems to have ramped up Friday's system from a few showers to a substantial cold front statewide. 10-15mm in parts of the south and 5-10 in the north. Looks reasonable.

4/5 previous Augusts, we had the September gales a month early. Rain and wind dont mix well in Melb, so next month will be interesting. Just the odd spit around this arvo for me.

4th Warmest July on record according to Livina for Melbourne

Expected that John... It's been like a thermal for Winter right?

5.2mm in the gauge here to 9am, in the previous 24 hours to 9am, we had 3.2mm, so some handy showers about for southern regions. Expect that to continue over the coming week, increasing at times around the weekend and early next week.

I am watching later next week for perhaps, and I say perhaps, some good rain statewide, but might get a bit of warmth in before then.

Well another frustrating day rain wise (around Melbourne) - kept looking promising but not to be (so far). Still the "trough" looks to be moving up now with showers running along it - being drizzle they are probably being underestimated on radar so could be a little bit in it.

BTW quite a step up in the rainfall being forecasted with tomorrows front (by the models) - GFS suggests up to 20mm as does EC. Fingers crossed. Also looking quite promising for the front early next week

4th Warmest July on record according to Livina for Melbourne

Johnno last time I check we were also running warmest nights on record. There is a fair urban heat island signal in Melbourne's night temperatures - but even so it has been consistently mild this winter with almost NO cold weather. A stat which shows this is the number of below average maximum temperatures which I reckon in Ferny Creek is running at (about) 2 for the month of July (the city has had just 1).

So much NW flow this month, and for that matter as a general pattern of our new climate. We just don't get 'stand up' cold fronts and lows anymore that drag up cold air from the southern ocean and Antarctic waters. Without the NW flow we (locally) probably would have been dudded again this month for rainfall. Still, as it is we are comfortably below average for yet another month, around 75mm without adding it up properly. Seeing I record rainfall in the evening I will actually record only 65mm as there was rain on the last day of June, so June ended up with 60.8mm which would only have been 48mm if I recorded to 9am like everyone else. Very similar to 1967 I guess and with El Nino ready to make a horrendous impact this spring.

Doesn't El Nino have a lesser impact on rainfall in the SE in summer than in autumn and winter? Just wondering if that is correct because it may not be all complete doom and gloom this summer if we get the storms returning here. I would imagine a weaker monsoon season up north might leave us more exposed to tropical moisture flows this summer. I'm probably completely ignorant and wrong about this but it seems that in a La Nina in summer all the moisture, cloud and rain gets locked in up north and we are left with extreme heat and dry down here.

Usually (not always 1983 is an example) The Summers of an El Nino (weakening) get moister and more humid Andrew.. Summer of 97/98 was that way with regular rainfall in Jan and Feb after December being so dry, Summer of 94/95 was that way too exactly like 97/98 with Dec being dry and hot, Summer of 2002/2003 was that way but Mainly Feb that year was moister & Summer of 06/07 we saw lack of Northerlies and humid ENE winds instead through Jan and Feb so perhaps not all doom and gloom but the next 5 months do worry me.