Monsoon spur to rain chances
A DOWNPOUR of rain is looking increasingly likely this week as a monsoon system pushes through to Queensland from the Northern Territory.
Bureau of Meteorology meteorologist Adam Blazak said there was a “promising looking” forecast for Townsville, with a 70 per cent chance of rain on most days this week.
He said the city could expect about 10mm of rain today.
Modelling shows there could be up to 25mm on Friday and Saturday but Mr Blazak said uncertainty remained because of the difficulties in predicting weather for Townsville.
“The orientation of the Townsville coastline is parallel to the wind direction of the Queensland coast and most of them ( storms) skirt the coastline and crash into Innisfail,” he said.
“But we are in with a chance this week.”
There are unstable atmospheric conditions and plenty of moisture, meaning much of North Queensland will start to get wet in coming weeks. Temperatures will peak about 31C or 30C and drop overnight to 25C.
Mr Blazak said a monsoon trough was on the Northern Territory side of the border and poking into the western Gulf of Carpentaria, including Burketown and Doomadgee.
“It’s forecast to move back towards the Northern Territory over the coming days but we will have a chance of seeing monsoonal activity in the far northern Coral Sea next week and early February,” Mr Blazak said.
“Whether that will impact on Townsville, it’s too hard to determine that.”
He said the chance of a cyclone was very low, less than about 5 per cent, for the next three days.
“As that monsoonal activity becomes more active at the end of this week or early February we’ll be keeping a close eye on in it,” Mr Blazak said. “It may go from very low to low by the end of next week.”
He said cyclone forecasts only extended up to three days.
“It’s hard to read into what they’re forecasting,” he said.