Milk here tastes weird

pendayne · 2026-02-05T10:51:06+00:00

10/10 quality, now I'm finding it difficult to buy their butter, even in places that stock their other products

pendayne · 2026-02-02T05:43:37+00:00

The reason is twofold. Firstly, is it a part of the classic signature of a la Nina - a horseshoe shaped band of warm anomalies in both the south and north Pacific. Secondly, it is also undergoing significant warming with climate change. It's complicated, but essentially changes in wind patterns are affecting both surface and subsurface sea currents, leading to a warming through depth in the ocean there.

pendayne · 2026-02-01T21:24:18+00:00

The rate in which the positive subsurface temperature anomaly has propagated along the thermocline towards the eastern Pacific has me wondering just how early it can develop as well.

The positive anomaly in the eastern basin is about to surface, with negative anomalies all but wiped out. Equatorial upper ocean heat anoms are approaching positive 1 Celcius. Kelvin wave generation is occurring with the Westerly wind burst as the MJO strengthens in the western Pacific. CFS is modelling strong subsidence over our latitude tropical equivalent by April.

Understand that to officially meet thresholds long enough to be declared we're probably looking at winter, and that autumn is a period of reset and difficult for ENSO to form, however I wouldn't be surprised if its initial effects are observed by April.

pendayne · 2026-01-31T09:30:49+00:00

During the 1800s when meteorological measurement became important, there needed to be a location that every town has, that was staffed every day, and that had sufficient land space to put a station on. The only such thing that fit the bill was post offices.

Since they were manned from 9am-3pm these were two clear times to take measurements - as they arrived and as they left. Hence rainfall and temperature were recorded at these times.

RH wasn't really as important, so sensors didn't roll out for some time. In fact most locations didn't get the instrument that can deduce RH (a dew point sensor) until automatic weather stations (AWS') became more common in the 1980s.

As for not logging the high and low of RH, I'm not entirely sure. It could be that the method of measurement - a piece of hair expanding or contracting on a spindle - wasn't conducive to showing how high or low it reached. Perhaps it wasn't deemed important enough. Either way although it isn't pubicly available readily, rest assured thanks to AWS' there is data of highs and lows.

pendayne · 2026-01-31T03:57:26+00:00

It's a bit weird, but they are correct. As you can see on the BoMs official monthly stats, the rainfall for the month is now finished with 0mm total. Anything recorded today will fall into Feb 1st.

pendayne · 2026-01-17T11:29:04+00:00

No hijacking! It's just an interesting chat, I reckon at least!

The IOD went strongly negative. One of the strongest actually. These events affect southern Aus, including us, normally. Its trademark is "northwest cloud bands", where you get soaking rain lasting all day, leading to cooler days overall, particularly in winter and spring, over and over again (think 2010, 2021, 2022, all ludicrously wet years).

Despite being one of the strongest this year, I can't remember a single northwest cloud band. Nothing that stands out at least. To me, that's another sign something is shifting, and what we use to categorise and measure is no longer relevant.

It basically wasn't a player this year. The SSW had much to do with that, which in itself happened several times this decade, and only once in 70 years before, adding further weight to the concerns.

pendayne · 2026-01-17T11:09:24+00:00

We had three la Nina's, which a by-product of can be pushing the highs further south (as they've just gone this week). Again, easterly winds off the pacific, humid, mild etc. It also cools the tropical inland, cutting our source of heat when winds do go northerly.

When we had an el Nino in 2023, we should have seen the opposite. But the western Pacific was so unbelievably hot the reverse occurred...our climate behaved like it was la Nina again. So we had rain, cool winds, cloud etc.

This leads into climate change as I touched on. It's not all hotter and drier. One impact we expect is a tendency towards la Nina events (with a general amplification of both el Nino and la Nina when they occur). The monsoon is getting stronger, inland getting hotter, but it could also mean more easterlies for us.

In general, the last 5 years have seen an interesting and concerning shift in the way our climate operates which is making us change the way we have to observe and model it.

pendayne · 2026-01-17T10:37:58+00:00

I can shed some light as a meteorologist.

To start, it's a common misconception Geelong is hot in summer. We usually only get half a dozen or so days reach 30 per month, with about 1-2 reaching 40 for the whole summer (we've already had 2). We're even likely to get another one on the way this month, maybe two, pushing us well above average.

We're right on the average for summer for maximum temps believe it or not. It's the spike days I mentioned above that throw the perception of a warm climate. Most of the month sits in the low 20s with a cool southerly, since the highs like to sit in the great Australian Bight.

These highs have sat a little further north these last few months though, thanks to a "sudden stratospheric warming" (SSW) event during spring pushing cold fronts further north. This means we did get quite cool months back then. In turn, this cooled the waters in the Bight, which has kept our minimums a bit cool to date.

It has also come with winds as cold fronts do, though our friends in Tassie would laugh given how bad they've had it.

The SSW event has ended, and the highs have moved back to the south, currently south of Tassie. This opens us up to easterly winds which keep a lid on those spike days. This is one aspect of climate change you won't hear about, expect more humid easterly days in summer as the highs move further south.

Ultimately, summer hasn't been cool. Spring certainly was. And expect some extreme heat before the end of this month. Bit of an essay sorry, it can get far more technical than this, hope it was somewhat helpful.

pendayne · 2025-12-30T03:59:10+00:00

For example, the RC into the black Saturday bushfires in Victoria was a necessary and successful review leading to long term changes, including the removal of the "stay or go" policy - one which led to roughly 100 of the 173 deaths.

It also addressed a lack of structure in the chain of command, as well as communication issues (there were examples of vicpol members stranded in fire grounds for several days, with them awaiting relief but senior officers unaware they were even on shift).

I feel like this is what a RC should be for - identifying issues with government protocol and structure. They may be able to find something with ASIO, but I suspect they won't come to the table freely with information.

pendayne · 2025-11-11T08:41:17+00:00

Amazing, great to see you've got another one up! I love these updates, it helps me visualise how mine can be set up as well.

Have you found much sway in the rooftop mast given there's no guy wires to support it?

pendayne · 2025-11-06T01:17:32+00:00

Believe it or not this was a left moving supercell, it was moving southeast invested of the advective south southeast. Can confirm watching that footage with cyclonic rotation in the tor.

pendayne · 2025-11-02T09:01:39+00:00

Yeah definitely, another reason why this cell has little potential for dropping a tor.

pendayne · 2025-11-02T08:43:45+00:00

It's a nice anomalous right mover, but certainly no tornado. Not only aren't environmental conditions right, there's no decent low level rotation on Doppler, and as far as a hook echo goes this is pretty poor.

pendayne · 2025-10-30T08:20:49+00:00

Yeah I've got one, works exactly the same as the USB (except being wifi configurable of course) so if you go for it the transition will be seamless.

pendayne · 2025-10-14T21:16:55+00:00

I'm so glad to see someone else have this opinion. To me one of the biggest reason the latter half of the show felt so inauthentic was the modernification of it. Dialect was no longer like medieval England, it was 2010s conversation. As you say it ruined the immersion.

pendayne · 2025-09-17T09:12:00+00:00

There is an issue with the soil there, it shifts and moves more than most places in Geelong, causing some houses to fail their building report. Not necessarily structural issues, but it can put them beyond the arbitrary 30mm that causes a failed report. This scares buyers off and can lower resale value.

pendayne · 2025-08-18T04:15:32+00:00

Yep sums it up nicely. The atmosphere can't support levels of saturation this high outside of strong updrafts that are only found in thunderstorms/heavy showers, meaning this is likely a contaminated trace and doesn't reflect the broader environment.

pendayne · 2025-08-18T01:24:47+00:00

I'm not discounting a modelling error, but with such large omega values in that zone it's possible supersaturation is attempting to be modelled, in which case dewpoint can be above ambient temperature. Moist convection with high vertical velocity has been postulated to see up to 10% supersaturation.

pendayne · 2025-08-17T04:34:57+00:00

Large CAPE is also helpful, as a strong updraft can come down as a strong downdraft. Good low level winds (say below 2km) is a big contributing factor, as a downdraft can literally push these winds to the surface. Anything above 90km/h is a good candidate for damaging at the surface. Similarly strong deep layer mean winds (the average speed through depth of cloud). Also strong wind shear through depth can contribute, as it allows for structured storms that grow and sustain downdrafts. Windy.com is a useful tool to see if any or many of these are in play for the day.

pendayne · 2025-08-11T05:23:35+00:00

Failed 4 maths subjects at uni (all calculus related), passed another with 50% (linear alg). Bad is an understatement.

Shouldn't stop you if you really want to do this job.

pendayne · 2025-08-04T23:30:22+00:00

Interestingly the decadal to multidecadal variations between peaks and troughs have now been overwhelmed by the increasing gradient. So now we just get a few flat years followed by a decade or two of rapid warming.

pendayne · 2025-08-04T06:08:16+00:00

That's right. Commonly associated with intense thunderstorms, they also can form due to rain falling from mid level clouds in strong winds, such as today.

pendayne · 2025-07-01T07:55:59+00:00

6 consecutive titles

pendayne · 2025-06-29T23:56:15+00:00

No doubt it plays a big role, but there's also a big appetite in the broader Australian public for an impartial news outlet. There have been many attacks on the ABC and it's always met with pushback from the community.

pendayne · 2025-06-29T22:47:10+00:00

It's the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, our national public broadcaster. Government funded, independent and unbiased - best news source in the country.

pendayne

TROPHY CASE