Cold fronts can nick off so we can dry out a bit. Soil is so saturated and every drop flows straight into the river. Which is still running a banker. Average spring rain falls, snow melt, and we flood, again.

Anthony Watts is claiming La Nina is returning so perhaps 2012 could be a repeat of 2011, but then again it is Anthony Watts.

Hobart looks set to have its warmest August on record, which is indicative of how few fronts there have been. And Adelaide is having a very mild end to winter as well. Perth is having its 'Wettest' winter in eight years, which is more indicative of just how bad its been over there for years and years now.

Will be interesting to see how things develop over the next decade. Interesting times. Quite a few folk were claiming this year would be a pretty cold and snowy year but not to be.

Wow Bliz @ Hobart. Hows their rainfall looking and the west coast of Tassie?
To add - I am at the end of my driest winter in a decade. almost 100mm short of the average. Considering our winter av is only 350 odd mm that's fairly significant I reckon.

Hobart is running 1.3C below the August record for maximums set in 1982. 14.4C atm and the 1982 record was 15.7C. Some much cooler days on the way for Hobart late in the period as well.

The record warmth quoted by Weatherzone is the daily temperature and the major contributor seems to have been the minimum temps. Obviously a lot of cloud and wind around which is actually atypical weather for high domination but is probably linked to more ECL related weather and less frontal weather.

Eastern Tasmania has been affected by a lot of cloud and rain this August if I remember correctly. Mount Wellington has recorded 267mm this month so far. Hobart looks like it missed out on the heavy rain but cloud and wind must have been a big factor in those high minimums.

The mild spell at the end of the month has combined with the high minimums from cloudy and windy days. Still a case of some very disordered weather patterns affecting Tas I guess.

The very low August rainfall for SW Tas tells the full story in relation to the lack of cold fronts.

Mins count as much as the max temps I am afraid, no excuses will be pardoned from me. Interestingly its often the ex-urban areas in the hills where the positive anomalies are even worse because the true warmth of the airmass's is measured there.

Looks like this August has fallen in the small league of most snowless Augusts like 1995,1982 and maybe one or two others. However before 1982 there was the bumper 1981 and before Aug/1995 there was 2 month of very solid winter far far colder than this year.
The frequency of warm month and warm years is certainly on a one way slope upwards, Aug 2009 was pretty bad too, but it was worse in the northern half of NSW with Armialde getting to an utterly incomprehensible 27 I think.
Yes cold front coldness and frequency is certainly on the decrease as the years go by no two ways about it. Doubt we will ever see another cold winter.

Also 26.3C at Armidale on the 19th August 1995, although at a different location to the one used now.

August 1995 and 1982 are the benchmarks in Victoria for extreme late winter warmth. It hasn't been quite as warm this month I don't think but right up there. It is all purely down to a lack of southerly winds and over abundance of northerlies thanks to the general absence of the westerly belt over the SE of the continent, a stalled LWT over WA, and high pressure domination at a time when it isn't supposed to occur down here.

2006 and 2007 were very warm too Coldsnap I remember temps touching 30c in NW Vic end of August in one of those Years and 24-25-26c in Melbourne

Ah found it.. It was 2007.

Melbourne Max temp..

August 25th. 22.6c.
August 26th. 22.7c.
August 27th. 25.7c.
August 28th. 20.7c.
August 29th. 19.2c.
August 30th. 23.9c.

highest temp for Melbourne this month was 23.2c back on the 2nd August apart from that we have had "the other warmer" days being around 18-21c.

Thanks guys, interesting stuff. 2009 and 2010 were possibly the worst winters in over one hundred years for cold fronts across the Blue Mountains. This year started off as an improvement but has declined notably since late July.

I still think nature will respond well into September but we will have to wait and see.

Looking pretty terrible now on the ski fields:

Selwyn:

http://ski.com.au/snowcams/australia/nsw/selwyn/index.html

Even the high CP is bad:

http://ski.com.au/snowcams/australia/nsw/charlottepass/charlotte1.html

Not sure how much snow the ski fields will get out of this approaching system but man, its much needed. Its been terrible since mid to late July down there...

According to Blair Trewin Melbourne has now gone 18 days without measurable rain. This is the second-longest rainless spell on record in August or September in Melbourne and the longest since 1899. The record will take some beating - it's 29 days.

Abbotsford just to the NE of the CBD had rain today and showers a few days ago, so the record is fairly local...

And I work in the CBD, it rained lightly, enough for puddles for awhile this morning, still trying to figure out how they didnt at least get 0.2mm??

What a terrible end (and indeed most of the middle) to the ski season, the models predicted it quite well from about six weeks ago. Anyone got any thoughts on what next year might be like? I'd say another below average year is on the cards next but here's hoping we get a bit luckier than this year. We can always hope.

Really, apart from some nice skiing in July, it was a short season and average peak depth was below average again.

The highest ski resort in the land:

http://ski.com.au/snowcams/australia/nsw/charlottepass/charlotte1.html

Smiggins:

http://ski.com.au/snowcams/australia/nsw/perisherblue/pb8.html

Selwyn:

http://ski.com.au/snowcams/australia/nsw/selwyn/index.html

Yes its been shocking now for all of August and September, that makes only 1/2 a winter that we had in June/July and even that 1/2 was slightly warmer than normal. Its funny last year we also had 1/2 a winter but the exact opposite in Aug/Sep and no snow Jun/Jul. For temps last year the second half was marginally cooler than normal but only slightly.

So in summary I guess that in future we should only ever expect to get 1/2 a winter, the only unknown is which 1/2?. But with the 2 halves possibly not even overlapping it means there is not a single month that you can be sure will experience some winter snow, that makes planning a trip to go skiing ever harder and near impossible.

Although I gave this winter a mild pass, I am struggling not to take away those marks and just call it a fail. The winter may hold on to its license to be called winter by the skin of its teeth. But its definitely back on its red P's and could fail at any time.

Thought I might put this link here for reference, thanks to Gerg from the ski forums.

http://members.optusnet.com.au/anon10/Spencers_peak_trend.png

The pre frontal trough that has just gone through Horsham has anything but disappeared.
At 14.24 the wind speed reached 67 KPH.
Gusts were to 89 kph
Temp was 29.3C and has dropped to 25.2C at 1500 hours and the pressure is still falling
Winds are still north at 42 kph indicating the actual front still has to come through here.

PD's post in the snow thread seems to suggest that they are disappearing.

'Today’s 18.0 in Cabramurra is the highest for September in more than 15 years (or longer?). highest in this time was 17.5 on Sept 27th 08.'

Its a windy front but a pretty weak one up this way for September.