Summer to turn up heat But rain tipped for season’s start
IT’S that time of the year when sweat drips from your body and locals look to escape the heat in shopping centres and movie theatres.
Today is the first day of summer and Townsville residents can expect maximum temperatures to spike to about 32C this season – although today is forecast to be 1C shy of that. The coolest it will get is about 24C.
Humidity is expected to increase to nearly 100 per cent as summer continues.
Showers are expected to hit the city today to mark the start of the hottest of the four seasons.
Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Andrew Busalino said showers were expected around the Townsville re- gion, particularly in the afternoon and evening today.
“It’s not until Saturday when we are expecting more weather activity across the region but nothing too significant in Townsville,” Mr Busalino said.
“There is more activity expected in the western regions. There are no real weather systems expected to bring rain.”
Mr Busalino said it was up to luck whether Townsville would get rain in the immediate future. “You’ll just be waiting for the odd storm system to collapse on the Townsville region,” he said.
Temperatures this week will be about average for this time of year but will trend towards mid- 30C later next week as a warm air mass moves across northern parts of Queensland.
Yesterday a freak storm dumped as much as 30mm in some parts of Townsville.
Bureau of Meteorology spokesman Adam Woods said he could not rule out heavy falls, similar to the overnight rainfall, taking place in Townsville today.
The forecast is for 21mm of rain until Wednesday.