Carrying on, rain or shine
Ain’t no sunshine as slow-moving trough brings forecasting difficulties
A SLOW-MOVING surface trough is making forecasting a difficult task for meteorologists, but there is one guarantee – the Far North won’t be seeing a whole lot of sunshine this weekend.
Warnings of rainfall totals up to 300mm weren’t experienced anywhere along the Far North coast, with Mareeba only receiving 5mm on Thursday, however BOM meteorologist Brooke Pagel said the trough was moving slower than expected.
“It’s just shifting offshore,” Ms Pagel said.
“We were thinking it may have drifted a little bit more onshore on Thursday, but it’s remained offshore so the heaviest of falls have been those coastal fringes rather than spreading inland.”
The Bureau’s initial forecast had triple-figure rainfall totals forecast for much of the Far
North coast on Friday, however at midday, no gauge in the Cairns Regional Council area had received above 50mm, while in the Cassowary Coast Upper Murray Rd near Tully had recorded 61mm.
Ms Pagel said most of the heavy falls had been from the Mission Beach area down to Townsville, but it was expected the trough would move north over the weekend.
“The latest modelling had a strong signal saying that the rain would ease off on Saturday, but still up to 70mm, but from Monday it’s really going to ramp up again, looking up to potentially up to 120mm.
“We’re seeing the trough move north of Innisfail on Saturday, so whether that’s going to interact with another system next week and cause those heavy falls, or that might be the potential of it shifting it back south as well. But it is sticking around.”
Ms Pagel said a weakening
La Nina system meant the current weather event wouldn’t be the last of the “late wet season”.
We’re still expecting above average rainfall and above average temperatures over the next few weeks.
At noon on Friday a Cairns Airport spokesman said staff had been monitoring the weather situation which at the time was “calm”.
He said no flights had been cancelled as a result of the weather.
“We’re constantly monitoring the weather but from a passenger perspective, their airline will be their normal point of contact if there’s any changes to their flight,” he said.
The rainfall which hasn’t had “out of the ordinary” impacts on Cairns, had also left tour operators unscathed with a Cairns Marlin Marina spokesman confirming on Friday “it was business as usual” for all the boats.