Current Conditions October 2013

Outback North Queensland
3.30pm

Temp: 40.2c
Humidity: 7%
Wind: NE 19km/h
Pressure: 1007.5hPa

57mm of rain in the year to date, all of which fell during the last wet season which ended 6 months ago. Hard to believe some trees and bushes are still green. Most of the landscape is brown (or black from bushfires) and the past few days have seen dust rising (no idea why) which was noted in weather forecasts. Very hazy because of the dust, lots of dust devils/whirly whirlys - not sure what us Irish call them - some can last for hours and be very slow moving across the land while spinning fast on the spot.

Sea temps around Australia are warmer than normal due to a largely failed wet season last year and the year before. This is allowing inland temps to rise well above normal and records are being broken in many places. We get low pressures that cross the country and don`t create any rain because they "dry out"! I`ve also noted that high pressures pulling winds off the sea in North East tropical Queensland often bring showers. Also Highs and Lows spin in opposite directions to the northern hemisphere.

Anxiously awaiting the wet season...

Sunday Partly cloudy. The chance of showers and gusty thunderstorms from the late morning. Areas of raised dust in the southwest from early this afternoon, extending throughout later this afternoon and evening. Winds N/NW 20 to 30 km/h shifting S/SW 25 to 40 km/h in the afternoon. Daytime maximum temperatures in the low 40s.

No idea what causes this "raised dust" as the other days when it happened it was calm.

Currently at 2pm it is 38.9c
Humidity 16%

Cloud building up with occasional gusts of wind. Tend to get these gusts of wind picking up right before a storm. But this is more like a tease, the gusts die off and pick up again etc. Forecast has a 30% chance of rain but here in Australia they forecast for very large areas and are very general with forecasts away from the populated areas so who knows.

6pm......winds picked up creating a DUST STORM!
Rain falling in a SE-NW line to the North East of here also moving NE direction, maybe some will form to my SW and move across. I went out on my balcony and got dust in my eyes!! mad