As was said before, there's only been one rainless month full stop: August 1995. Given the latest GFS it may not be so silly to add May 2012 to the list. Nevertheless it only takes one brief coastal shower on May 31st to "spoil it".

BTW Homeboy, that's a very low max temp- are you in a shaded area? Even Terrey Hills got to 27C today. I'm not disputing your reading because I know there can be cool microclimates- I live in one myself, unfortunately there's not enough space for me to get an unbiased reading.

ACCESS interactive is indicating some rain from a low in the tasman on sunday night followewd by rain from a large elongated North/ south aligned high bringing up some cooler temps and coastal rain Monday, tuesday,wednesday. Looks very much a coastal 'event' for south and mid coast NSW?.
GFS not interested?
just adding up the frames the mid coast could get 20mm -30mm ++
from sunday night to wednesday ( end of forecast period )
and looking like some cold winds coming up from the south
http://www.bom.gov.au/australia/charts/viewer/index.shtml

Why isn't Sydney observatory hill recording wind direction. It would of been good to see where the warm dry air mass was coming from to make those temps climb so quickly today
The dew point dropped low and the wind speed declined
Nice clear skies l assume?

Obs Hill hasn't measured winds for about 20 years - the readings would be meaningless because of all the buildings in the area.

Not sure if it's been mentioned earlier on this thread, but today's 29.1 (with the chance of doing something similar tomorrow) is 0.9 below the May record and 0.3 below a late-season record.

BOM going all out with 29c for tomorrows top temp!

Canberra got to 22 today.
CW would have the air-con pumping for sure.

Homer

28 to 29 degrees is forecast tomorrow for almost all centres along the coast from Wollongong to Grafton.
Should be passing through Sydney about lunchtime tomorrow. Might have to turn on the A/C in the car if it starts getting up into the high 20s.

Well I'll be barracking for 30C tomorrow, may as well break a record. But it's unlikely to get past 29 imo, 850's are no warmer. We could be breaking cold records in June and July though, if it stays this dry.

From going through every model so far I get a total of zero for Sydney, but there will be rain offshore. I will grant you it does not take much of a wind shift to bring the showers onshore, but at this stage its still offshore.


I doubt the 29 to happen again tomorrow, I would go for 27 if I was to bet on it.

Thanks for that Blair, that is reassuring to know.

Hopefully that tropical low will push down over the continent a bit to arrest the heat build up a little. Zero cloud over the interior for the last 6 weeks or so it's not hard to fathom why we're getting all these Indian Summers. The pattern will continue until the NW cloud bands form but the heat should get less severe I guess (and fronts push further north).

ACCESS R is going for a patch of 14-16c air at 850 tomorrow afternoon, so I wouldn't rule out 30c in the concrete jungle. Could be a record setting day as most records are around 29-30c in this region.

Still sitting on 18c ATM which is positively balmy for may considering the long term max is 20.3.

Another amazing warm autumn day up here. Max of 18.0C here which was closer to the BOM sites at Mt Boyce & Murri St, Katoomba than yesterday due to the breeze / air movement today.
Lovely morning up at Blackheath at the park near the pool with the kids. Wentworth St is pretty much at the peak of its powers at the moment with red predominant on the Liquid Ambers. The dry weather & cool nights (until last night) has really brought the colour out in the last week or so.
Overnight min last night of 12.1C but it is already lower than that (11.7c) at 8pm tonight.

Aslaws, you were certainly a lot closer to my reading today, I had a carbon copy of 17.9 again today. Wonder what kept you cooler today?. I would have thought the air movement would have worked the other way.

Yeh, not sure either PD. But I find that with some wind (especially from the west like today) it takes the shelter of my backyard out of play to some degree. I think the wind mixes the air, subjecting my weather station to a more representative sample of the surrounding airmass.
10.4c outside now.
When I heard the minimums from the Northern Tablelands this morning I was shocked after our balmy 12.1c. We really are in a unique little microclimate up here on this 1000m high ridge. I see that you had 6.6c.

another cracker of a day today. Last time I looked at the temperature measurer it was 24-something. Funny to go between the Ulladulla obs and Nowra, we were more like Nowra today. Ulladulla was much cooler. Definitely a t-shirt, shorts and tevas day (still is!). Hard to judge when the horrible cool air arrives tomorrow, it'll be a lot less dramatic on the coast though, and it's looking like a useless dry change too. Feared that, it's so very south.

No complaints from me about some dry weather Ant. There is still mud & water all over the place up here. I'll start hoping for some more rain when I can mountain bike ride without spraying mud all over myself.

I note that Observatory Hill max was 1 to 2 deg warmer than everywhere else on the list of Sydney Observations. Once the seabreeze shuts down as it tends to do in Autumn, the urban heat island really takes over. You also notice it on sunny winter days when the Obs Hill max is 18 - 20 when it is 16 - 18 elsewhere in Sydney.

P.S. Observatory Hill averages for the 1st to 10th of the month - min-max (avg):

May 2012... 12.3 - 23.0 (17.6) - with 2 days warmer than the 'hottest' day in December.
Dec 2011... 14.7 - 21.6 (18.1)

aslaws, I just can't forget the years, decade? of drought and feel that wet weather is more of an anomaly. At least down in our corner. I read what Southerly Buster said about el nino with considerable dread... the minute it hasn't rained for a few weeks, I'm wondering if we're heading back into one.

Yeah I understand Ant. We average 1400-1500mm per annum round these parts & it was never truly dry here during recent years. But if the bush does dry out then everyone starts thinking about bushfires - I'll take the rain any day over bushfires.

Blair, surely it would be meaningful to at least know approximately which quadrant the wind is from, so you have a rough idea if its from the harbor, CBD, East, West. The site does not look that bad, certainly nothing like the Melbourne AWS. Just need a vane on some near higher structure.


Aslaws, the frost this morning here was really odd, do not often see one on a morning this warm at 6.6deg.

Frost, no way. Fascinating last few days up this way temperature-wise. We had 12.1C as a minimum last night - not sure why we were so much warmer than you. I suppose we just don't get ANY cold air pooling.