Los Niños – The Sibling Rivalry

By Willy Weather on May 4, 2011 in Other

The weather is a hard thing to predict – especially in the short term. However, from a macro point of view, there are some certainties. Imagine that we are zoomed out to space and viewing Earth below. Now imagine that we can not only speed up time, but fast-forward and rewind it too. Now we can see wind patterns using the clouds as our visual marks.

You may have heard of the warm El Niño in the dry seasons and, of course, what we are experiencing now with the wet La Niña. From this distance they can be explained. The weather patterns near the Earth are being influenced by powerful tubes of wind called jet streams. Jet streams are caused by the Earth’s rotation combined with the updraft of the sea surface heated by the sun. The sea surface temperature is cooler right now over the Pacific Ocean so below the jet streams the easterly trade winds are stronger, blowing the huge rains we have seen over Australia.

For those who are done with the rain, do not fear, the Bureau is predicting the weakening of La Niña conditions so that in the coming years you will have your baking hot dry seasons all over again.

DID YOU KNOW?

Aeroplanes use (or avoid) jet streams depending on which way they are going.

MAY WILLY WEATHER STATISTICS

Temperature

High – 30.0°C (1919)
Low – 4.4°C (1862)
Average – 15.5°C

Rainfall

High – 585.0mm (1919)
Low – 3.0mm (2008)
Average – 120.7mm

Sunrise

May 1
Rise – 6:29am
Set – 5:14pm

May 31
Rise – 6:50am
Set – 4:54pm

Moonphases

New Moon – May 3rd
First Quarter – May 10th
Full Moon – May 17th
Last Quarter – May 24th

All of the above information was supplied by www.willyweather.com.au.