beuro of meteorology

[damian]

My ladyfriend's parents moved to dorrigo last year, so we spent 7 days there over christmas. Rained every day, several times a day.

I am sure it has it's appeal, but it woudn't be my choice.

[silentC]

Dorrigo is near the headwaters of the Nymboida River, which is well known as a white water rafting destination. So high rainfall is good, although you don't want it flooding because then it gets dangerous. A guide was telling me they lost 2 or 3 people in one year back in the early 90's.

[mic-d]

That I don't know. They do in ACT, but nowhere else in Australia AFIK. It makes sense, but it's pretty difficult to put a percentage on a forecast. For instance, it might probably rain, but that probablility may be somewhere between 51% and 99%.

As SilentC says, the statistics help you to make a decision, but they don't guarantee anything.

A bit like people talking about a 1 in 100 year storm. People assume that means there won't be another storm like it for 100 years. What it means is that the average recurrence interval for a storm of that duration and intensity over that area at that place is 100 years. You may have another next year or not for 300 years.

If you go to this heading in BOM, and click the link:

Flood Warnings, Rainfall and River Information

• Queensland Flood Warning Centre

You can then click on
Forecast Rainfall

It will bring up an interactive map which displays forecast rainfall, and also CHANCE OF RAINFALL. SWMBO has found it quite accurate and useful.

BoM radar is not showing the present situation. It is refleced 'sound' and about 30 minutes behind. Thick smoke and dust can fool the radar into showing-up like rain - radar is just one tool used to assist the operator distinguish between weather features.

soth

First part is absolutely untrue sorry. The radar radiation travels at the speed of light, the images are updated every 6minutes on the BOM site, so the furthest behind the data will be, from realtime is 6 minutes. Looping the images is useful to determine the speed and direction, say, a storm is moving, we use it quite a bit. You can see the time stamps on the images.

CHeers
Michael

[AlexS]

Thanks Michael, I wasn't aware that those images werey available.