WEATHER WATCH: Low pressure trough brings a long line of thunderstorms

As the system was moving quickly, rainfalls were generally light indeed apart from a heavy hailstorm on the Gold Coast. Behind this low pressure, a surge of very cold, unstable SSW airstream became established and many towns had their coldest September day for more than 15 years.

On Friday, September 8, Melbourne recorded a maximum temperature of 11.7 degrees, the coldest September day since 2004.

A very large high pressure system has now moved over Victoria and looks set to park itself in the Tasman sea. The barometric pressure reached 1034mbs in Melbourne, very high for September.

Past cases of high barometer readings during early September were in 1951, 1975, 1998, and 2004. There was then a marked warm spell for the next week or so in our regions, up to 27 degrees in Victoria and over 30 degrees north from the Riverina and no significant rain before about September 21. The first part of October was notably warmer than usual.

High temperatures the last two days in the Goldfields region of Western Australia, up to 35 degrees at Kalgoorlie, are very close to the highest temperature on record for September.

Previous very high September temperatures at Kalgoorlie occurred in 1912, 1918, 1938, 1961, 1965, 1977, 1980, 1987, 2017 and 2019. Every one of these led to very high temperatures in Victoria and NSW up to 30 degrees by the end of September, up to 35 degrees by the fourth week of October, and over 40 degrees by mid December.

While slowly recovering from a horrendous dog bite wound received eight weeks ago in Moree, I have spent some time trying to forecast the next few years ahead and found that we are in for widespread major floods in eastern Australia late 2030 and in February 2031.

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