Storms and rain lashed parts of Gunnedah overnight Tuesday into Wednesday. But the barrage was nothing compared to the district’s northern neighbours.
More than 13mm of rain was recorded by the Bureau of Meteorology at Gunnedah Resource Centre in 24 hours to 9am Wednesday. Much of that fell in the preceding few hours including 6mm from 4-7am during a brief storm in Gunnedah.
Across the region, the rainfall was patchy depending on storms in the area.
Narrabri recorded 23.2mm in 24 hours to 9am Wednesday, including 10mm during a 20-minute window about 3am.
Rainfall totals were even bigger further north with a whopping 42mm dumped at Moree, including 30mm in just one hour between 5-6am on Wednesday.
More moderate totals were recorded elsewhere such as Tamworth (18.8mm) and Coonabarabran Airport (6.6mm). Further west was even less with just 2.2mm at Coonamble.
A very high chance of rain was forecast in the Gunnedah region on Saturday with 10-25mm of possible rainfall, most likely in the morning and afternoon. Winds will be north to northeasterly 20 to 30 km/h turning northwesterly during the day. Overnight temperatures falling to between 5 and 10 with daytime temperatures reaching between 14 and 18 degrees.
The Bureau of Meteorology said a cut-off low pressure system looks set to develop over the Bight later this week and move towards Tasmania, whipping a strong cold front that will cross the state between late Friday and early Sunday.
Airport weather offline.
Gunnedah Airport’s weather station appeared to be malfunctioning early Wednesday morning with almost no rain recorded in the previous 24 hours. But in a statement to the Gunnedah Times, a Bureau of Meteorology spokesperson said on Wednesday:
“The Bureau of Meteorology is aware the Gunnedah Airport Automatic Weather was offline yesterday to undergo routine maintenance.
“The site is now back online: Latest Weather Observations Gunnedah Airport.
“The Bureau undertakes regular maintenance checks on its infrastructure to identify faults and completes repairs as needed.
“The Bureau’s weather forecasts and weather warning service has been designed so that it is resilient and not dependent on any one piece of equipment. Forecasts and warnings for all regions are based on a combination of many different observing systems including satellites, automatic weather stations, radars, rain gauges, and hydrological monitoring stations.
“The composite nature of these systems allows specialist staff to monitor approaching weather and issue forecasts and warnings.”
