| The strong pressure gradient
between a 1032hPa high over southeastern Australia and a 1007hPa low which
developed east of Cape York late this morning continued to produce strong
to galeforce winds off sections of the Queensland coast, and heavy rain
around and north of Cairns. Low Isles lighthouse, off the coast 16km
northeast of Port Douglas, recorded 202mm in continuous rain during
the day, with average winds just below gale force. The store at Cape
Tribulation, however, registered 210.8mm in the 24 hours to 9 this morning,
then a further 341.8mm to 9am Thursday, for a 48 hour total of 552.6mm (see
story for 27 April). There were falls in excess of 200mm in the mountains
SSW of Cairns for the 24 hours to 9am, and heavy rain or showers have drenched
the area since last Sunday. The Tully, Barron and Mulgrave Rivers are in
flood. Food drops have been made to homes in the Mulgrave Valley near Gordonvale,
where 12 campers were airlifted to safety after being stranded by rising
floodwaters that have isolated the valley for 2 days.
Daytime maximum temperatures were 10 to
13° below normal across central and northern inland Queensland today.
Persistent cloud cover has resulted in some large areas of northern
WA, central and southern NT or inland Qld recording daytime temperatures
10 to 15 below average over each of the past 10 days, an unusually long-lasting
anomaly.
It was a record cold morning in the Adelaide
area this morning, as clear skies and high pressure caused temperatures
away from the coast to plummet. Parafield Airport and the RAAF
Base at Edinburgh both recorded record low April minimum temperatures;
details are below. In an interesting contrast, Kingscote, on a small peninsula
on Kangaroo Island, recorded a minimum of 16°, while Kingscote
Airfield at Cygnet River, 11km away and 5km inland, recorded a minimum
of 2.2.
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as
new and corrected information becomes available, with updates underlined