by Grant Burgess

Why was it so hot?

·     A “heat low” developed in central Australia on Tuesday and extended to the southeast of the continent.

·    The 1000hPa to 500hPa thickness was high, near 5900m. This indicated an extremely hot air mass.

·    Winds on the day were not strong and gusty but more light to moderate, with a definite northwesterly influence. The lighter winds allowed greater surface heating to occur and thus generate high temperatures.

·    Humidity throughout the day remained low and made the day just a little more bearable. This dropped to 14% in mid afternoon in turn keeping the dew-point temperature to a comfortable 10°C. Comparing these to the day before, humidity was closer to 40% with dew-points in excess of 20°C all day – in short hot and sticky.

Temperatures throughout the hunter recorded on the day as well as Extremes

# Data recorded by the Bureau of Meteorology.

I have disregarded any extreme records taken over a period of less than 10 years.

Saturdays Maximum temperatures are taken directly from the BoM’s “Silo” website section.

These records are logged on a website be Laurier Williams at: http://www.australianweathernews.com/

If you wish, you can navigate quickly to this site by going to my local website at: http://raymondterrace.hunterweather.com/ and follow these points:

·    Firstly go to the “links” page on the left hand side

·    Then on the right hand side, go down to the “Regional Websites” heading

·     Now on the third line under this heading entitled “Highlights”, go to the “Daily Data” link.

·     Now click on the Hunter Valley (Number 61).

·    If last months data loads, then go to the top of the page (the first bullet point), and click “Current”.

back...