Bye bye megablizzard, hello rainmageddon. Eastern Australia is about to be soaked

GOOD news for farmers, bad news for everyone else, especially skiers. Wait’ll you hear how much rain is about to soak Australia’s east.

MOST of eastern Australia has suffered from well below average rainfall over the past few months with Sydney seeing less than half its average. But this is all about to change.

A major five-day rain event is developing today, promising to break the drought in parts of inland QLD and NSW, soak the coast from Brisbane to Gippsland and lash the NSW south coast with severe weather.

SO WHAT’S CAUSING THE DELUGE?

The rain-giver here is a deepening trough that lies over eastern Australia. By Saturday it forms into a low which then moves east across NSW and then off the coast on Monday when it’s likely to bring the most severe weather. The other important feature is a cold pool of air on the

western side of this trough and warm, humid air on the eastern side of trough.

IT’S A PINEAPPLE EXPRESS

This is a baboon eating a pineapple. What does that have to do with this story? Ummm, well... let’s just say it’s illustrative of the fact that this week’s rain comes from warmer climes. Photo by Chris McCormack.

This warm, moist air originates from the Coral Sea off QLD and it’s rising above the cold air not only forming cloud and rain, but also dropping the pressure. The fact that the atmosphere is full of moisture due to warm waters off QLD is a prime reason why we’ll see so much rainfall in the coming days.

WHAT AREAS WILL BE MOST AFFECTED AND WHEN?

Basically, if it has stripy black lines over it, it’s going to get wet.

The rain event started yesterday with up to 10mm for parts of southwest QLD, northwest NSW and eastern SA which hadn’t seen more than a drop or two in the rain guage since April. But we’ll really start to see the effects today as moisture from the Coral Sea pours into the deepening trough bringing up to 50mm of widespread rainfall all the way from tropical QLD down to northern NSW and eastern SA.

This is great news for farmers as it will be the start of the best rainfall in six months for many areas suffering from one of the worst droughts on record.

SATURDAY

The soaking peaks for inland areas on Saturday as a low forms along the trough.

Many of us are familiar with the type of weather you can get from a deep low — heavy rain, flash flooding, possible severe thunderstorms and gales. On Saturday, a massive band of rainfall will saturate most of QLD and NSW with widespread falls of 25-50mm. Some of the moisture will start to trickle down to northern VIC.

SUNDAY

There’ll be a bit of this happening... so be careful, everybody. Pic Bill Hearne

On Sunday, the deluge unleashes on the east coast as the low moves towards it. If you live between southeast QLD and Victoria’s East Gippsland, now is time to get the washing and gardening done or stock up on your DVDs and board games as Sunday will be a super soaker. Widespread falls of at least 25mm and as much as 100mm are forecast for some parts of the coast between Port Macquarie and the Gold Coast. Brisbane and Sydney are likely to see their heaviest rain in at least five months.

MONDAY

On Monday, the low moves off the coast and deepens in the Tasman Sea which is bad news for the NSW South Coast. The region is set to get pounded by damaging gale force winds, heavy rain, flash flooding and massive seas and swell. Rainfall totals over 100mm are possible. Conditions will be very dangerous for any water activities including boating, surfing and rock fishing. This eastern deluge finally eases on Tuesday as the low moves away.

Check out the full national forecast here.

RAINMAGEDDON VERSUS MEGABLIZZARD. WHO WINS?

After two fantastic months in the Aussie skifields, we’ll see a bit of this on the weekend, sadly.

What does this mean for the ski resorts? Unfortunately, when the rainfall develops over southern NSW and northeast VIC late Saturday into Sunday it will be too warm for this precipitation to fall as snow across the Alps. This is because the air mass is travelling from the Coral Sea so

it’s moist and humid.

For snow, we want the air mass originating in the chilly Southern Ocean. It cools down a little between Monday and Wednesday so a mix of rain and snow is likely but it won’t amount to more than 5cm of fresh snow as minimum and maximum temperatures will stay above zero.

Twitter/Instagram: Magdalena_roze

Originally published as Bye bye megablizzard, hello rainmageddon. Eastern Australia is about to be soaked