By I. Hansana, Jadetimes News
Sydney and Brisbane are set for another week of wet weather, driven by a potentially record breaking high pressure system. On Wednesday, this system could also bring Melbourne its coldest morning of the year.
Daily showers are expected along Australia’s east coast until at least next Wednesday. The Bureau of Meteorology forecasts up to 60mm of rain in Sydney and Brisbane. This forecast adds to an already rainy year for Sydney, which has received more than a year’s worth of rain in the first half of 2024. On Tuesday, heavy rain and storms hit northern Sydney and the NSW central coast. However, this week is expected to see drizzles rather than heavy downpours.
“It’s not that really heavy rain that comes all at once,” said Angus Hines, a senior meteorologist at the Bureau of Meteorology. “But it is a long stretch of showery days, and it’s going to be hard to dry everything out at this time of year with the cool weather. It will result in quite a long stretch of pretty grey and soggy weather along that coastline.”
The showers are due to an unusually strong high pressure system over the Great Australian Bight and Tasmania, which is redirecting ocean moisture to NSW and Queensland. This system could break an Australian air pressure record, with forecasts predicting it will reach 1044 hPA by Friday, compared to the current record of 1044.3 hPa set in Launceston in 1967.
While this high pressure system will bring showers to the north, it will also cause clear skies and cold nights in Victoria, Tasmania, and much of southern Australia. Melbourne could face its coldest morning of the year on Wednesday, with a minimum forecast of 0°C. Tuesday saw the coldest mornings for Hobart since 2022 and Adelaide since 2021.
“We could see that repeated through parts of southeastern Australia, with tomorrow likely to be the coldest morning of the week,” said Hines. “We could have many more spots towards the coldest temperatures they’ve seen this year.”
Wednesday’s overnight temperature in Melbourne could dip below the coldest temperature on record for Melbourne Olympic Park, which was 0.6°C on 19 July 2015. The site has only been recording data for 11 years. At Melbourne Tullamarine Airport, the temperature is forecast to be 1°C. If it dips to 2.5°C, it will be the lowest since 11 August 1986.
Melbourne is expected to experience mornings of 5°C or below for a week straight, potentially making this the coldest week for the city in 11 years, according to Weatherzone. More showers are expected to move inland over South Australia, Queensland, and NSW by the weekend, before reaching Victoria next week as the high pressure recedes, potentially bringing milder temperatures to the country’s south.