August 2024 Mallacoota Weather report

 The BoM has the Climate Outlook at "Neutral" between El Nino and La Nina with a tendency towards La Nina.  That would imply an expectation of above average rain.  Not in this District in August: very dry (in terms of rain at least) but also ending up extremely warm overall, compared to average temperatures for the month.  As is often the case, it appears that the answer is blowing in the wind (if Mr Zimmerman doesn't mind me borrowing a phrase).

Rain

What is this thing called 'rain'?  We totalled 22.6mm for the month, the 6th lowest since my records begin in 1977.  Obviously well below average (35.7% of median) but better last year's miserable fall of 13.8mm.  The benefit of a low fall is that the low daily falls actually appear in a chart!

We are however still well in front of 2023 in total (by 285mm) and the pro-rata estimate for the year as a whole is still 1066 mm.

Temperatures

The final value for the temperature anomaly was +1.8C.  That is not the highest value of the anomaly I have calculated (there are 3 higher values) but only +2.0C in November 2020  is significantly higher.  Despite this high recent value, the 12 month moving average still suggests a downward movement may be evident, although the trend of the average is still upwards.

The development of the anomaly through the month shows a rather cold start to the month followed by a steady increase.

The extreme temperatures show that the cause of the high anomaly is the very high maxima recorded in the month.

A further point of interest in temperatures was the daily ranges.  For most recent months a combination of high minima and low maxima has meant the daily temperature range has been below the range of the averages for a high proportion of days in the month.  For August the range in the average was higher on only 6 days, reflecting the consistently high maxima and low (or at least relatively low) minima.

Minimum Temperatures

The average minimum for the month was 8.39C.  The highest minimum temperature was That was the highest recorded since my broad series (Airport and home) begins in 1993.  The next chart shows the 6 year series of readings on my weather station.

It will be no surprise that this year is top of the pile.  The highest minimum temperature was 13.3C on the 13th: this was =6th highest August minimum.  11 days were more than 1 SD above the monthly average (ie significantly hot).

While there were 3 consecutive days of minima more than 1 SD below the monthly average, these were not accompanied by significantly low maxima and thus do not amount to a Cold Spell.  

Maximum temperatures

The average maximum for the month was 19.12C, the highest average maximum for August by 0.5C. 

The highest maximum was 'only' 23.7C which is the 21st highest August maximum in my records (including a small adjustment to make the WS and Airport data more consistent).  There are two other WS record of higher maxima.  What has caused the high average is the number of days significantly above the monthly average maximum: 

1. only 6 days were below the average maximum for that date;
2. of the 25 days above average 
1. 15 were more than 1 SD above the monthly average and 
2. 4 of them were more than 2 SD above the monthly average.

Further, there were 10 days in which both maxima and minima were significantly above average.  It seems a little panic-ridden to describe a period with a maximum temperature ~22C as a "Heat Wave" but it is certainly significant that of the last 19 days of the month only three of the extreme temperatures were below average for the date and of the last 8 days of the month only 2 readings were less than 1 SD above the monthly average.

Humidity

The average morning rH at 82.1% was well above average while the afternoon reading was close to average.

The values for 31 August - especially the afternoon reading - were so low that I assessed the pattern through the day.  It looks normal so I will regard this as an effect of a constant wind from the NE.

Wind

I have difficulty with wind, as my WS is far from optimally exposed (too low and too sheltered from the Southern half of the compass).  There is relatively limited information available (at no charge) from BoM. The average daily wind run this month was about normal for August.

Of more interest this month is material about the the direction of the wind.

This shows that 61% of the records of wind (excluding those with no wind run - ie calm) in August came from the segment of the compass from NW to NE (31% of the compass).  Looking at all WS records 42% of windy records came from that segment.  I have taken this above as an explanation of the Humidity data, and expect that it also contributes to the high temperatures observed.

Tempest data

A friend operates a weather station neat the Wharf using the Tempest app.  This includes some very interesting data on Lightning Strikes (within 40km) and Solar Radiation.

The solar Radiation chart is particularly interesting in understanding the need for running the hot water booster and why my solar feed in varies (beyond the appalling feed in tariff now offered).

A visit to Boyd's Tower

 We have recently adopted a practice of visiting spots to our North when we go to Eden and/or Merimbula for other purposes (or vice versa).  On 28/8 we needed a few items in Eden so went to check out Boyd's Tower in Beowa National Park, never having been to that site.

As is now well known the name of the National Park has been changed to Beowa because it was felt inappropriate to honour Ben Boyd in that way, primarily due to his involvement in Blackbirding.  From having read about his history there seem also to be other reasons to disqualify him!  

Nice view to the South

And to the West, looking in to Twofold Bay.

Attractive geology is available.

I did mean to focus on the folded rock, rather than the Acacia longifolia!

A large mammal was slapping its fins around about a kilometre offshore.

I hope the punters on the Cat Balou got to see it.  Our attention was first caught by a full breach about 200m behind the boat.  (I have emailed the boat owners asking for confirmation of it being a Humpback.

A view of the tower from the ocean side.

In case you wonder who built it!  Reminded us of the activities of the mango Mussolini.

A close up of the stone work, which has survived very well given the exposure of the site.

A pair of Australasian Gannets were over the ocean.

About 1km away and flying quickly in the wind.

Getting back to Edrom Rd gives a closeup view of the piles of logs awaiting chipping.

Another view of the chip mill from Cocora Beach.  The previous image was taken about where the ridge dips down.

And here is a view of the Tower from Cocora Beach 

On the Beach: Davis to Betka

 There was a monster swell running this morning.  I hope the next two images give a bit of a feel for it!

When we got to Betka we found a Pied Cormorant - in some taxonomies now known as a Great Pied Cormorant - and 2 Hooded Plovers sheltering from the wind.

A close up on the Cormorant showing the ivory bill and yellow face.

You can never have too many zoomed snaps of Hoodies.

July 2024 Weather Report

 A noticeably wet month.  The country all around is very waterlogged.  The temperatures were weird with cool to cold days but warm over night, with the balance being to warm (some species of birds and plants are behaving in ways that suggest overall warmth).

Rain

Overall my  Weather Station (WS) recorded 122.4mm for the month (verified by my plastic Nylex!).  This is 171% of the median fall for July and was the 9th highest fall recorded in July (out of 45 years for which I have records either at the Airport or my WS). As a basic comparison the month was a lot less than June 2024 but dramatically more than July 2023.

There were a lot of damp days!

Much of the weather was squally with isolated rain cells hitting more or less at random.  There were a few heavy falls as shown by rain rate.  The highest rate (96mm/hr) on the 16th was the 27th highest rate I have recorded (out of 1998 daily records).

The random nature of the falls is shown by the variation in monthly totals for some local Stations: as Gabo hasn't reported for a few days late in the month - and the seas have not been conducive for a BoM tech getting out there to fix it - data is not available there.  The last 3 stations are Wunderground sites.

Temperatures

After a cool start the temperature anomaly rose quickly and for most of the month oscillated around +0.5C, ending at +0.4C.

The extremes show the maximum mainly below the average for the date (with the exception of a very warm patch 22nd-23rd and the minimum above average until late in the month when it cooled somewhat.

An outcome of this pattern was a reduced daily temperature range.  The average daily range for July is 9.3C whereas for this year it was only 7.4C.  The range was wider than unusual (such a weird typo I have left it) usual only on 5 days of 31!

Minimum temperatures

On looking at my long term minimum temperature series I notice that many of the recent readings - from my WS - are above the earlier ones from the BoM Airport site.  This leads me to wonder if there is a difference due to topography and thus attempting to compare the two sets is dodgy.  As I now have 6 years of WS data for months up to July I will just show the 6 monthly annual series for comparison.

As expected the value of average minimum temperature (7.66C) is in the upper part of the range shown by these series.  

In terms of significant readings there were 9 readings I regarded as being significantly above the long term monthly average and only 1 reading (of 3.3C on the 27th) significantly below the long term monthly average.  Going forward, I shall recalculate the ling term averages restricting the average to the period since I opened my WS (2019).

Maximum Temperatures

While I have adjusted the BoM Maxima to allow for site differences, to give better consistency I shall also only use the WS series here.  Again as expected the value for average maximum (15.21C) was in the lower end of the range.

The significant readings are a very interesting mixture.  There are 8 readings significantly below the long term monthly average, with the lowest reading 10.5c being very significantly lower.  However there were also 4 readings later in the month significantly above the long term monthly average with the two highest (21.1C on the 22nd and  20.8C on the 23rd) being very significantly above.

Humidity

As might be expected with so many rainy days humidity was generally high.

The low value of rH on the afternoon of the 27th (43%)stands out sufficiently to look at the hourly values through the day.  It presents a believable pattern

Overall the values of both series across the month show it to be in the higher end of humidity for July, but not unbelievably so.

Wind 

My WS is not well exposed to wind and gave particularly low readings early in the month, about which I am suspicious,  However it seems to have shown satisfactory readings later and the 2 local wunderground stations also show low runs early in the month.  So perhaps it was just a calm period?

Walks are getting interesting!

We went for a walk up the Narrows yesterday afternoon, with objectives of:

1. relaxing; and
2. checking on the state of florification, especially WRT Indigofera.

I am pretty confident that objective 1 was achieved.  Obective 2 was also satisfied since we did see an example of Indigofera with a flower.  I example and 1 flower but ....

Somewhat to our surprise as orchid flowering has not been good recently we found a few flowers from that family.  The first sample was Caladenia catenata.

We found a colony - perhaps 6 plants of Pterostylis melogramma.  A small greenhood, which is included as a "Tall Greenhood" which as the plant was about 10cm high seemed a bit of a misnomer!

Next up was P. curta, recognised by the twisty labellum.

An interesting shelf fungus which may be Phellinus wahlbergii.

On the Narrows walk we met another resident who commented that she had seen some Nodding Greenhoods on the Betka River loop. So on 31 July we took ourselves off there. First good sighting was a Split-gill fungus Schizophyllum commune.
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Then another strange specimen.  

The most distinctive element was the shape of the gills.  Unfortunately my phone managed to find a way to focus on the trees not the gills but hopefully this shows the odd shapes on the underside.  This makes it, in my view a very good match for Inocybe australiensis as shown in "A field guide to Australian Fungi" by Bruce Fuhrer.  (An identifier on iNaturalist disagrees with this, but I shall continue the debate.)

There seem to be a lot of Coral Fungus around this year.  This is Ramariopsis crocea.

I have been hoping to see one of these for years!  Ileodictyon gracile Smooth Cage Fungus.  Somewhat surprisingly it is grouped with Stinkhorns. (It looked very like a bit of discarded plastic packaging!)

We finally found the target: Pterostylis nutans!

Unlike many of the local greenhoods this one has a rosette of leaves,