Globally, July 2023 was the hottest of any month on record, surpassing the 1850-1900 temperature average by 1.5 degrees celsius. The summer heat has gripped parts of Europe and North America, igniting devastating wildfires. Further to this, Antarctic Sea ice is at a historic winter low, which cannot be easily explained by natural cycles or […]
Australia is being warned to prepare for an unusually warm and dry spring, despite the Bureau of Meteorology continuing to hold back on declaring a fully-fledged El Niño. The Bureau released its latest climate driver update on Tuesday afternoon, stating that “Sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the tropical Pacific are exceeding El Niño thresholds”. However, […]
An intense flash flood swept through Zaragoza in northeastern Spain last Thursday, catching motorists completely off guard by the torrent of water. On Thursday 6th a near-stationary supercell thunderstorm formed over the region, dumping a torrential 20mm of rain in just 10 minutes. All up, 54mm fell over the town, nearly equal to its entire average […]
Sydney Airport has been grappling with the challenges posed by strong crosswinds, forcing the airport to operate on a single runway several times over the past few weeks. These gusty westerly-component winds (exceeding 20 knots or 37 km/h at times), blowing perpendicular to the north-to-south oriented runways, have created significant disruptions in flight operations, resulting […]
The record for the world’s hottest day has been broken twice this week, according to new data published by the University of Maine’s Climate Change Institute. We are talking here about global average temperatures, NOT the hottest single official reading, which for the record was 56.7°C at Death Valley in the western USA in 1913. […]
El Niño and the typically drier-than-usual weather it brings across much of Australia is now officially one step closer after the BoM issued an El Niño Alert this Tuesday, June 6. “The Bureau’s *ENSO [El Niño Southern Oscillation] Outlook has been shifted to El Niño ALERT, indicating a 70% chance of El Niño forming this […]
The Southern Annular Mode (SAM) – one of the main broad-scale mechanisms influencing Australia’s climate – just reached one if its strongest positive levels on record. What is the SAM? The SAM refers to the north-south displacement of the powerful westerly wind belt that flows around Antarctica throughout the year. These westerly winds carry the […]
A satellite just captured the shadow of the Moon darting across the Indian Ocean and glancing northwestern Australia during today’s total solar eclipse. More than 20,000 people converged on Exmouth in the far northwest corner of WA on Thursday to witness a total solar eclipse. This rare spectacle occurs when the moon passes between Earth […]
On Saturday, Indonesia’s most active volcano, Mount Merapi, erupted, sending huge plumes of ash into the sky. It serves as a large-scale reminder of how ash and dust from explosions, including in mining and demolition, can travel and spread. Mount Merapi erupted at 5am UTC (1pm WST) on Saturday afternoon. Most notable was a […]
Australia’s tropical cyclone season is officially underway, but we may not see much activity for few months yet. The season runs from November to April, and for mining operators and businesses across northern Australia, 2026-27 is shaping up to be a season where the headline numbers and the real risk may not line up. On […]
A positive Indian Ocean Dipole is underway, but this one is unlikely to deliver the textbook dry spring and summer that businesses have come to expect from the pattern. The Bureau of Meteorology officially declared a positive IOD on Tuesday, October 27, which typically like El Niño can cause drier and warmer conditions over parts of […]
Waters off Indonesia have cooled in recent weeks, an indication that a positive Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) event could be developing. It’s an important climate driver for Australia, and it could shape rainfall and temperatures heading into summer, with flow-on effects for farmers, energy and other industries. What is the Indian Ocean Dipole? The IOD […]
Leonora, WA, had its wettest September day on record earlier this month. Three weeks later, more than 1.3 million lightning pulses were detected within 800 km of the town in 48 hours. Why is a stalled trough delivering storms to mining country, and what it could mean for operations? The DTN Total Lightning Network detected […]
