I thought i'd kick things off with developing significant rain event for the ACT and the surrounding districts.
The current ACCESS R is suggesting that with the deepening of the low pressure trough as it pushes towards the east, with the combination of moist easterly flows, and very moist nw infeed stretching right back to the central australia, making for conditions that are ripe for record breaking rainfalls.
The BOM has pre-warned for this event nearly 3 days ago, as EC, GFS and ACCESS all giving the green light for a significant event. Full credit to the BOM for this, people certainly can't say that they weren't pre-warned.
A selection of the Significant Weather Release IDN38503:
IDN38503
Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology
New South Wales
Significant Weather Media Release
Issued at 3:56 pm EDT on Tuesday 28 February 2012.
The Bureau has issued a Severe Weather Warning and Flood Watch for a large part
of central and southern NSW with heavy rain developing today and increasing on
Wednesday and Thursday. The Nepean-Hawkesbury River which provides a border to
western Sydney is included in the Flood Watch and is likely to flood before the
end of the week.
"A major rainfall event is unfolding and we expect flooding to develop in the
coming days," the Bureau's New South Wales Regional Director Mr Barry Hanstrum
said today.
"The heaviest falls are most likely in a band running between Broken Hill to
the south and central coast including Ivanhoe, Forbes, Young, Cowra, Canberra,
Goulburn, Wollongong and Sydney. Some locations could receive falls in excess
of 300mm over the next several days," Mr Hanstrum said.
"This event is perhaps the most significant rainfall event that some of these
areas have seen in decades and records may be broken. I urge people to keep a
close eye on the latest warnings issued by the Bureau," he added.
For more on this warning :
www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/wrap_fwo.pl?IDN38503.txt
Canberra has already received approx 36mmove the past 48hrs, with an additional 100-150mm expected over the next 24hrs:
www.bom.gov.au/jsp/watl/rainfall/pme.jsp
- The main issue is that the soil in the ACT and surrounds are already primed for flash flooding due to the saturated nature of the soils. Currently Googong, Corin, Bendora being at 100%, and the new Cotter dam rising steadily at 93%
water.bom.gov.au/waterstorage/awris/#urn...region.city:canberra , it's little wonder that there is much speculation of pre-emptive evacuations.
The canberra times has this write up on the preparations for the new but incomplete Cotter Dam to be readied for the expected overflow:
www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/rain-t...-20120229-1u22g.html
A good place to keep an eye on river levels for NSW / ACT here:
www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/wrap_fwo.pl?IDN60147.html
I will endeavour to cover this event for this region as it unfolds.