Australia’s severe weather season runs from October to April and typically features a mix of heavy rain, thunderstorms, heatwaves, bushfires and tropical cyclones. When predicting how the 2021/22 severe weather season will unfold, we look at the broad-scale climate drivers that are likely to influence Australia’s weather during the next 3-6 months. In recent […]
Today is World Maritime Day, which is an opportunity to highlight the importance of shipping and other maritime activities. Sea fog is a weather event that significantly impacts ports, shipping and other maritime businesses. In fact, sea fog has been observed on several occasions off the northwest shelf of Australia this season. Sea fog is a rare phenomenon off the Pilbara coast, however during August it occurred three times in one week. While the sea fog events […]
While all thunderstorms cause lightning and thunder, only a small proportion of the storms we see in Australia are considered severe. So, what makes some storms more dangerous than others? Image: Lightning strikes Sydney in spring 2020. Source: @glanzpunkt / Instagram All thunderstorms require three key ingredients to form: An unstable atmosphere, meaning the air […]
Several rain-bearing systems aligning over Australia this week could see rain falling in the official gauge of every state and territory capital city. Australia’s eastern and southeastern states will be doused by several days of rain and thunderstorms this week as a slow-moving upper-level low pressure system interacts with abundant tropical moisture. This system is […]
The first significant rain and thunderstorm outbreak of spring will affect eastern and southeastern Australia this week. A upper-level low pressure system interacting with moisture-laden air from the tropics will produce widespread rain and storms over parts of Queensland, NSW, the ACT, Victoria, Tasmania and SA over the next 5-6 days. MONDAY Gusty winds will develop over SA on Monday […]
Damaging winds are a common feature in Australian severe weather and thunderstorm warnings. But did you know that some types of wind are more dangerous than others? There are three things that can make the wind dangerous: strength, duration and direction. What is the difference between a wind gust and average or sustained wind? * […]
Ground shaking was felt across a large area of southeastern Australia on Wednesday morning amid a series of earthquakes centered near Mansfield in eastern Victoria. The largest of this morning’s tremors was a magnitude-5.9 earthquake, which occurred shortly after 9am local time. Another magnitude-4 tremor was recorded near the same location just after 9:30am. […]
A cold front will cause damaging winds, large swell, thunderstorms and showers in NSW during the next 48 hours. Sydney and Brisbane are both having a warm start to the week as northerly winds flow over eastern Australia ahead of the approaching cold front. However, the front will bring an abrupt cool change in both cities later today and tomorrow. The cold front […]
The renewable energy industry has grown dramatically in the past few years and is fast becoming a mainstream energy source. The push towards renewable energy is also driven by companies’ commitment to reducing their emissions and becoming more sustainable. Some of the largest mining companies across Australia have seized the opportunity to move from fossil fuels […]
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 […]
