 |
| Rain for the week ended 9am Thursday 27 May. |
 Cool
and wet in The Centre, warm in QLD
A strong infeed of moisture across the Kimberley coast produced thick
cloud cover, some moderate rain and an unseasonably cold day across the southern
NT and neighbouring areas today. The moist airmass, which was responsible
for good rain across eastern states on Monday and Tuesday, drifted southeast
from around Java about a week ago. The strong surge of colder air that pushed
NE into WA last Friday caused widespread ascent and instability in the moist
airmass, leading to an unusually long-lived and slow-moving cloudmass that
arrived in The Centre late Saturday.
While the southeastward drift of the cloudband gave good rains to SW QLD,
much of inland NSW and northern VIC on Monday and Tuesday, the lingering moisture
over The Centre has been producing widely scattered moderate to
heavy falls over the past 5 days. As the rain map for the week shows, almost
the entire southern half of the Territory has recorded 25 to 75mm for the week
to 9am Thursday. In the 5 days to 9am Thursday, Arltunga, 90km ENE of Alice
Springs, recorded 82.3mm, Undoolya, 15km E of Alice 69 and Ormiston Gorge,
120km W of the town 66.9. Alice Springs itself recorded 57.8 over the 5 days
at the East Side station. Warramunga, 35km SSE of Tennent Creek, recorded 51.8mm
in the
24 hours
to 9am Thursday, the highest 24 hour total reported over the period.
The rain and heavy cloud cover kept maximum temperatures across The Centre
in the low to mid teens today, 8 to 11 below average. Yulara's top of 13.7
was 11.2 below, while in far NW SA, Ernabella only reached 12.5. It was a
different story ahead of the cold airmass in a band from NE NSW, through central
QLD
to the
NT Barkly
Tableland,
where overnight minima were generally 8 to 11 above average. |
