Very low topped showers is probably the main reason. The radar is on the other side of the ranges and this hides the showers from detection in effect.

Have a look at the radar notes listed here - http://www.weatherzone.com.au/radar/sa/adelaide

belated congrats Timmy E... trust weatherzone to spread the news! I pretty much get your weather 4 days before you....lol. I have moved to SW WA for work, and the weather here is boring as...although epic sunsets sunrises, trouble is for both, I am at work. I would have been interested in that booking thing too Tim, except...I cant fly back.

on saturday the whole state wa green on the radar and it wasnt raining here yesterday exact opposite.
doesnt really matter but t hanks

Yer SW has said pretty much what I would've Peter.
Saturday's rainfall was higher based hence it was visible on the radar.

Thanks David. Hope all is going well over there.

Some late stats for March, for my location! Been a bit slack, only collated today! For all us weather geeks!

Av Max: 24.6c 2.1 below av
Av Min: 14.9c 0.9 below av
Rainfall: 31.8mm 6mm above av

So far April is running about a degree above average for maximum and minimum temps! Rainfall I'm 30mm down!

Thats one intense little low off SE NSW! Almost looks like it has an eye, just like a tropical cyclone!

So, BoM's "National Seasonal Rainfall Outlook: probabilities for May to July 2012, issued 24th April 2012" map shows the National Climate Centre is predicting a 60 to 70 % chance of the rainfall being below the median for the period May to July, over most of the agricultural lands of SA (someone correct me if I haven't interpreted it correctly please).

Doesn't mean it necessarily will be below average, and if it is below, this may be compensated to some extent by good subsoil moisture levels in some districts.

I may have asked this question before, but does anyone know if ocean surface temperatures influence the kinds of weather systems we get - the systems that ring the moisture out of the atmosphere. We could have high moisture levels in the atmosphere for the next three months but if there are no weather systems triggering rain then it won't do us any good.

It seems to me we have three primary factors influencing how much rain we get:
Weather systems
Ocean surface temperatures
Chance, chaos, randomness, capricious weather gods

2mm of drizzle/smizzle this morning! Quite low cloud this morning brushing the tree tops around my way!

Now that we've finally exhausted the discussion about the issues raised in my post above I can move on to the weather to come in the next week. The State forecast currently includes this: "Cumulative rainfall totals from Friday morning until midnight Monday are expected to be 1 to 3 mm over the southern agricultural area, with less than 1 mm over the northern agricultural area.
Tuesday until Thursday
Isolated showers extending to south of Woomera to Broken Hill on Tuesday then easing and contracting to the southern agricultural area during Wednesday and Thursday."
But I half-heard the BOM forecaster on the Country Hour mention some rain passing through on Tuesday.
I doubt if it will be much.

Hey Unstable, sea surface temps when high generate more moisture in the atmosphere! You just need a decent trough to drag the moisture down to good old SA! Then a nice strong cold front to interact with that moisture to produce a nice rain event! Most of our winter rains come from this scenario with moisture coming off the Indian Ocean off NW WA! Hope this helps, with my limited knowledge! You basically answered your own question, no decent system, no decent rain!

Thanks Kgb
The other part of my question is this:
Do la ninas not only cause more moisture over us but also more and/or stronger rain-producing systems.
When there is a la nina, do we get more moisture and more and stronger rain-producing systems, or do we simply get more moisture but only the usual rain-producing weather systems. We know that la ninas sends more moisture our way but do they also give us more and/or stronger rain-producing systems - a double whammy
And is the converse true for el ninos - less moisture and less rain-producing systems - a double whammy in the direction of drier years - or just less moisture?

A couple of suggestions. Maybe warmer or cooler areas of ocean influences the distribution of high pressure areas. Maybe lots of moisture "cranks up" some rain-producing systems so they become stronger.

Unstable,

La Nina and El Nino relate to sea surface temps in the Pacific Ocean! La Nina produces hotter sea surface temps close to Australia and conversely for El Nino, temps are down! In La Nina years more rain for mainly eastern Australia, opposite for El Nino! I don't think there is any correlation between La Nina and stronger systems, it just comes down to the amount of moisture in the atmosphere! El Nino puts colder water closer to the east coast of Australia, so less evaporation, less moisture! Trade winds are stronger in La Nina years, helps to push moisture over eastern Australia, and opposite in El Nino years! Recommend you check bureaus site or Wikipedia, lots of info to be found!

I think it helps alot in winter when we get a decent strong LWT and cold pool on the coasts for decent coastal drenching, when the air is that cold that it forces strong convection from the cool southern ocean, on occasion coldies , yeah a good warm ocean in N/W WA can give us moisture but I think that a system needs to deepen over that moisture here in SA to use any of it, not just sweep it down out of the state to the SE, each system is different and so many systems/cut offs weaken over SA, and dont use the moisture to its potential, hence why central Australia is so dry at times..

On another note, anyone see the clouds this afternoon ? If it was summer i would be expecting big CG lightning and big rolls of thunder ! The bases of those Cumulus are just so dark .

YES!! I was wondering what was going on at one stage as I was inside for a fair while and came outside to see this quite low, very dark, and ragged base lol..... Reality soon dawned though lol... still would love to know what caused it. Might go back and check models and the obs from today.
Hope someone may have taken a pic or two?

I've just been doing some reading as you suggested Kgb "Recommend you check bureaus site or Wikipedia, lots of info to be found!". I can see that the question of whether El Niño/La Niña-Southern Oscillation and also the Indian Ocean dipole affect weather systems as well as moisure levels is a complex one and might take a university degree to master fully. I'll do some more browsing around to see if anyone may have written a good summary of what is known and speculated about that particular aspect. My guess is that oscillating surface temps in the Pacific and Indian oceans do influence weather systems. It is believed to influence the number of cyclones that are generated so that is one example we know about.
Interesting comments Azz I agree with your observations about cold pools generating coldies, and another mechanism generating coldies is the progressive warming of the lower levels of deep SW to S airstreams as they come up from far to the south.

Quote TE "...Reality soon dawned though" - indeed - and the reality is ... drum roll ... stratocumulocrarpus blaaargh

All comes down to moisture levels and sea surface temps Unstable, La Nina years lots of moisture/high sea surface temps, thus more cyclones! El Nino less moisture/lower sea surface temps, less cyclones!

Tim, sunset was pretty speccy last night, sun was shining on those ragged bases! Was tempted to run in and get camera...

and speaking of moisture, BoM are still forecasting some rain for the agricultural districts next Tuesday, and their rainfall predictions are "Cumulative rainfall totals from Saturday morning until midnight Tuesday are expected to be 2 to 5 mm over the agricultural area with local falls of 5 to 10 mm possible over the southern agricultural area and West Coast. Less than 2 mm is expected elsewhere." Not a break to the season but enough to keep the top cm or two of soil damp for a while for those who've sown.

Chance of thunderstorms on Tuesday the BOM says , late morning to late afternoon, i'm not expecting anything imo .

Glad someone mentioned it. I sat out there watching for quite a while half expecting some lightning. Lots of cloud structure and movement that I've only seen around storms before...was pretty cool.