Australian Weather News -- February 2000

Australian Weather News

Go to the main news page	Find a place on a map	Saturday 12 February 2000
Today's weather extremes		Flooding rain continues in southern NT, northern SA, and extends into western NSW Heavy showers in Sydney and strong winds in NSW Gales in Tasmania
Highest rainfall, 24 hours to 9am
138.6 Ormiston Gorge NT 118.0 Alice Springs AP NT 105.0 Mt Sophia Gordonvale Qld 101.0 Watarrka (Kings Canyon) NT Other heavy SA/NT falls: 98.1 Santa Teresa Mission NT 88.6 Wallace Rock Hole NT 72.0 Mereenie NT 67.0 Erldunda Station NT 65.0 Idracowra Station NT 65.0 Mungerannie SA Heavy NSW falls: 67.0 Fort Grey Tibooburra 61.4 Corowa 54.0 Tibooburra AP 52.0 Quinyambie 50.4 Tibooburra PO		Flood rainfall petered out in central Australia late this morning, but not until giving more record totals to an area that averages 10 to 40mm for the whole month of February. Alice Springs Airport received a phenomenal 74mm between midnight and 3am, giving the town a 24 hour to 9am total of 118mm, a February record. Torrential rain fell at other locations in the MacDonnell Ranges as well, Ormiston Gorge reporting 138.6mm and Watarrka (Kings Canyon) 101, of which 46mm fell in 3 hours to 6am. In northern SA, heavy rain stopped falling before midnight, but still gave the police station at Marla, a truck and rail centre in the state's central north, a record 56.6mm to 9am. The rain has been produced by moist air converging into a deep monsoonal low in SW NT, and a deep trough extending into NW NSW has transported a tongue of moisture into that area giving rainfalls of 50 to 100mm. The settlement of Tibooburra recorded 87mm in 18 hours to 3pm, while the AWS at the airport recorded 86mm in 12 hours to 3pm, falling fairly steadily and in nearly total calm through the period. This is about 3 times Tibooburra's February monthly average. The met office in Cobar reported 34mm in 9 hours to 3pm. Daytime temperatures from SW NT across to the NSW northwest were 12 to 15° below average today due to the cloud cover and downward mixing of colder upper air due to the rain. A southerly change that swept through Sydney this evening produced some unusually heavy showers and strong winds. Little Bay, on the coast north of La Perouse in Sydney's southeast, recorded 32mm in 60 minutes to 9.44pm, while Cromer in the northern beaches recorded 32.5 in the hour to 10.51. Winds strengthened into the early hours of Sunday, with a few hours of galeforce southerlies reported from the south coast in the early morning and moving north to the Hunter coast by mid morning. Norah Head lighthouse reported gusts to 85km/h around 5am. Strong winds were also reported on the Central and Northern Tablelands, where emergency services had to clear fallen trees from roads. Southwesterly gales, cold enough to produce snow on the higher peaks, swept Tasmania today. Atop Mt Wellington, the wind averaged 65 to 100km/h until late afternoon, with the temperature fluctuating between zero and 4°. The strongest sustained (10 minute average) wind was 109km/h recorded at 7.30am, when a gust of 130km/h was recorded and the temperature was 0.1.
Highest & Lowest Temps
Maximum	Minimum
40.0 Richmond AP Qld	28.4 Winton PO Qld
5.6 Mt Wellington Tas	-0.1 Mt Wellington Tas
Greatest variations from normal
Maximum	Minimum
+5.5 38.0 Carnarvon AP WA +5.5 38.0 Geraldton AP WA	+6.5 22.4 Quirindi NSW +6.5 23.2 Scone Soil Con NSW
-14.7 21.1 Marla SA -14.2 22.2 Oodnadatta AP WA -14.0 22.0 Giles MO WA	-8.1 6.0 Salmon Gums WA
Other extreme readings
Rainfall: McCluer Island NT: 49mm in 2hrs to 2am Wind gusts: Keogh's Pimple, Hartz Mtns Tas: 115km/h at 6.22am
Records set this day
Alice Springs AP NT: Heaviest daily rainfall for February, 118mm beating the previous record of 93.5mm in 58 years of record Marla SA: Heaviest daily rainfall for February, 56.6mm beating the previous record of 36.6mm in 16 years.

Times stated are the clock time in force in the relevant state or territory
Stories, including those in the archives, are as new and corrected information becomes available, with updates underlined
Australian Weather News gratefully acknowledges the Bureau of Meteorology as the collector and main source of meteorological data in Australia, along with the thousands of observers who record the weather and rainfall daily. I also thank Don White and the many contributors to the Aussie Weather mailing list who routinely provide much appreciated information.