A new quarterly overview of weather for September to November indicates that South East Queensland is likely to have slightly above average rainfall and a 60-70% chance of above average temperatures during the period.
You can click on each of the small maps at the above links for more detail, and follow various links to other detailed information. Maps below are from the above sources. Note that the main maps at those links are zoomable down to quite local detail - as in the temperature forecast map excerpt below.
Chance of above average rainfall for September to November
Chance of above average temperature for September to November
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Bushfires can occur year round: we have to be prepared
Yesterday’s fires in Sydney’s western outskirts are a timely warning for all Australian communities. Being prepared for a bushfire is not just a summer job – communities in bushfire prone areas, and in the ever-expanding urban/rural interface surrounding our cities and major towns, need to be prepared 12 months of the year.
When the conditions are right, hot and windy days, with dry vegetation, fires will occur. They are a fact of life in the environment we live in. We all must be vigilant about our local conditions.
An earlier fire season?
While summer is usually the time associated with the highest bushfire risk in the southern states across Australia, bushfire seasons are starting earlier and lasting longer.
With these longer fire seasons, fire agencies need to continually refine the education and warning messages for communities in fire prone areas. Much of the new research into bushfires is now about how best to keep communities educated and informed about these changing and evolving circumstances.
Seasonal outlooks help Australia plan for fire season. AAP Image/Dean Lewins
Part of this is the Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre seasonal bushfire outlooks. Every year since 2006, before the northern and southern Australian fire seasons, the Bushfire CRC has brought together fire managers from all states and territories with Bureau of Meteorology scientists to produce seasonal bushfire outlooks for the relevant fire season. The seasonal outlooks are a useful insight for fire and land management agencies about the expected fire season, so they can plan accordingly.
What’s the outlook?
Broadly, there are two fire seasons in Australia – northern and southern fire seasons. Across northern Australia, the fire season coincides with the northern dry season during winter. In southern Australia, the fire season begins later in the year, in the lead up to, and including, summer. Depending on the location and conditions experienced, southern Australia’s fire season can run through to March or April.
Bushfire CRC seasonal bushfire outlook. Bushfire CRC
Last week the Bushfire CRC released the Southern Australia Seasonal Bushfire Outlook for this fire season. You can see from the map above that large areas of southern Australia, especially along the east and west coasts extending inland, face above normal fire potential for this fire season.
This above normal forecast is due to abundant grass growth across inland Australia, as a result of above average rainfall between May and July 2013. Grass fuels grow quickly, and this short burst of above average rainfall across inland Australia, coupled with above average temperatures across the country since January 2013, has been enough for the above normal bushfire potential to be declared.
In forested areas, a combination of factors, such as Australia’s hottest summer on record and above average temperatures over winter, has seen the bush begin to dry out.
How can we be prepared?
We know that bushfires will happen in Australia every year. But we also know from research on recent large fires that many people living in high risk bushfire areas are still under-prepared and ill-informed on the dangers and the preparations needed.
Changes to bushfire policies in the last decade have seen increased emphasis on early warning, focus on protection of human life over fighting the fires, the need for shared responsibility between official agencies and the community for bushfire safety, and the use of personal bushfire survival planning and protection areas around the home.
This week’s bushfires in NSW have taught us we don’t know everything about being prepared.AAP Image/Dean Lewins
This change in the way that bushfires, and indeed other hazards, are managed has been strengthened by the extensive and concerted research efforts. The psychological motivations and other reasons behind an individual’s decision to act or not to act in advance of a fire, sometimes despite their best intentions, is better understood by fire agencies applying the research.
The scope of work such this, so important in helping agencies communicate fire preparedness, has now been extended to include other natural hazards in Australia through the newly formed Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC. There are many common areas between fire and other hazards. For example, with fire and flood, community issues are comparable, response issues and incident management are similar and recovery issues have many common threads.
The bushfires on Sydney’s urban/rural fringe yesterday, before the official, declared fire season in New South Wales, are another demonstration that we do not know everything about being prepared for emergencies. We need to urgently find new and better ways to help people understand what it means to live with threat of bushfire, flood, cyclone and other natural hazards, year round.
We need to ensure lessons are learnt from each event, and that policies and practices are changed, based on sound, scientific research, to safeguard the community. There is still a lot more to do.
Both the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC and the Bushfire CRC receive funding though the federal government’s CRC program and state and territory fire, land management and emergency service agencies.
The Bureau of Meteorology has an page on Bushfire Weather. While the information provided is of a general nature it provides some interesting information, though I did wonder how much it might need to be updated as climate change (and our understanding of its impacts) develops. I've added this site to the new Fire Links section in the column on the right.
It makes reference to the BOM's Fire Weather Warnings - one was issued last Saturday evening for Sunday. I've been wondering what triggers these and how they relate to the Fire Danger Index (which I don't think they mention). Here's what the Bushfire Weather page says about them:
Fire Weather Warnings
The Bureau of Meteorology issues
Fire Weather Warnings when the Fire Danger Index (FDI) is expected to
reach or exceed a value of 50 (38 in Tasmania) either today or the next
day. [So that's the link! 50 is the low end of the Severe FDR] Warnings are broadcast on radio and television. In most
States and Territories, fire authorities declare a Total Fire Ban
based on a range of criteria including the Forecast FDI from the
Bureau.
The text and map below are clipped from the BOM Fire Weather.
High Risk Weather Patterns - New South Wales & southern Queensland
The fire season for most of Australia's east coast extends from spring to
mid-summer. The greatest danger occurs after the dry winter/spring period,
before the onset of the rainy weather common in summer. The worst conditions
occur when deep low-pressure systems near Tasmania bring strong, dry, westerly
winds to the coast, as occurred in the major New South Wales fires in January
1994 (Figure 5).
Figure 5: Historic Chart Analysis at 11am EDT on 7 January
1994, showing areas with extreme fire weather that resulted in serious bushfires
in NSW and southern Queensland
