The north-easterly winds, strong at times, over the Blackall Ranges came from a combination of a high near New Zealand and a weak monsoon trough over northern Australia.

Thunderstorm activity triggered off a week of wet weather. The rain over Christmas came from upper level troughs, enhanced by the remnants of ex-TC Laurence which was carried on a jet stream across the continent. Rainfall for the week was 61mm, bringing the total for the month to 113mm and it is good to see the joy expressed by rural property owners with replenished tanks after experiencing six ‘dry’ months. Paddocks and gardens are looking refreshed and the Obi-Obi flowing once again.

Please go to “Current Weather” &“This Month” pages for more data

More rainfall is expected in north-east NSW as remnants of Cyclone Laurence move east.

More than half of the Italian City of Venice is flooded as water levels rise to their highest this year.

Much of Europe continues to face severe transport upheaval as a cold snap sweeps the continent. More than 80 people have died across Europe, including at least 42 in Poland and another 27 in Ukraine who have frozen to death. Another 13 people died in car accidents in Austria, Finland and Germany, where temperatures dropped well below zero. Air, rail and road transport has been severely disrupted across northern Europe and more snow is expected. But after three days of cancelled services, Eurostar trains began running between Brussels, Paris and London. The backlog of thousands of stranded travellers was expected to take several days to clear. Frankfurt airport, Europe’s third largest, re-opened on Tuesday morning after closing on Monday because of icy conditions. In France, Belgium and the Netherlands, airport operators cleared runways after thick snowfall caused major disruption to flight patterns.

The “Next Generation Forecast and Warning System” is underpinned by a set of forecast weather element grids, quality controlled by forecasters, for time intervals out to 7 days ahead.  Each weather element, for each time, is stored in the Australian Digital Forecast Database on a high-resolution 6 kilometre by 6 kilometre square grid and maps are generated for display in the new Forecast Explorer web interface. The first state to use this system is Victoria’, where the Bureau has been operating and evaluating a demonstration weather forecasting system since October 2008. The government, in its 2009/10 budget has announced funding of $30.5 million over five years to roll this revolutionary system out across all states in Australia.