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So it seems I have a little too much time on my hands. Courtesy of the BOM data I was able to calculate the mean difference in maximum temperature for consecutive days in summer for the three largest Australian cities. I find this measure more helpful than standard deviation.
The results are:
Sydney: 2.8°C difference between days
Melbourne: 4.8°C difference
Brisbane: 1.6°C difference
Basically this means that on average in summer in Melbourne tomorrow will be 5 degrees colder (or warmer) than today! That sounds like a big difference.
The largest single changes I could find are:
Melbourne: 24.9°C drop from 39.5°C on December 13 1924 to a maximum of only 14.6°C the next day December 14.
Sydney: 22.0°C drop from 44.2°C on January 1 2006 to 22.2°C on January 2.
Brisbane: 14.6°C increase from 24.8°C on December 14 1913 to 39.4°C on December 15.
(Based on data for December, January, and February for all available years. There might be some gaps in the data... caveat emptor. But the average differences should still be reasonable.)
The southerly buster has arrived in the Sydney region (at around 8pm-ish). It's now windy, humid (dewpoint 19C) but rather cool, at 21C. Very refreshing I say.
Here are histograms showing temperature distributions for Australia's three largest cities in summer. I think they illustrate quite nicely the weather patterns in summer.
As you can see the modal temperature for Melbourne is quite cool--between 20-22°C. In fact, more than 50% of summer days have maximum temperatures below 24°C and almost 20% (i.e., once or twice a week) have maximum temperatures below 20°C. It is indeed not an exaggeration to state that Melbourne is normally cool in the summer; even an "average" day is abnormal. The deceivingly high mean maximum of around 26°C is accomplished through the long tail of temperatures at the high end of the scale. The distribution is decidedly asymmetric.
Sydney on the other hand has a much more symmetric distribution. Its mode is very close to its average although the variance is I think rather wide for its latitude: more than 20% of days are in excess of 4°C above or below the mean.
Brisbane has an even tighter distribution of temperatures with 90% of days being within 4°C of average. There an average day is, actually, a normal day.
Last edited by Ed's Mountain; 12-14-2016 at 10:02 PM..
Here are histograms showing temperature distributions for Australia's three largest cities in summer. I think they illustrate quite nicely the weather patterns in summer.
As you can see the modal temperature for Melbourne is quite cool--between 20-22°C. In fact, more than 50% of summer days have maximum temperatures below 24°C and almost 20% (i.e., once or twice a week) have maximum temperatures below 20°C. It is indeed not an exaggeration to state that Melbourne is normally cool in the summer; even an "average" day is abnormal. The deceivingly high mean maximum of around 26°C is accomplished through the long tail of temperatures at the high end of the scale. The distribution is decidedly asymmetric.
Sydney on the other hand has a much more symmetric distribution. Its mode is very close to its average although the variance is I think rather wide for its latitude: more than 20% of days are in excess of 4°C above or below the mean.
Brisbane has an even tighter distribution of temperatures with 90% of days being within 4°C of average. There an average day is, actually, a normal day.
Nice! Really hits home when you see a visual representation. This is a direct confirmation of my "remove the 10 hottest days in the summer and you have Heathrow" theory. Those odd spike days really do skew the average highs. All you gotta do is look up the daily observations and you can clearly see the plethora of low 20's days interspersed with a smattering of mid-30's to 40C+ day here and there.
Sydney having a real ass of a day, has only reached 19.1C as of 5pm. Yesterday my high was 20.6C so a real DISGUSTING WINTRY southerly attack.
7 day forecast here is 5C below average aside from a single 34C day and lows in the low teens which have no place to be spammed in SUMMER High teens and low 20's in southern Vic (including Melbourne) with a 32C day in the mix. A true ****en ASS of a DICKCEMBER.
**** THIS DICKCEMBER
Sydney's forecast are starting to deteriorate aswell, with some low 20's creeping in among 2-3 days of 28-32C.
Nice! Really hits home when you see a visual representation. This is a direct confirmation of my "remove the 10 hottest days in the summer and you have Heathrow" theory. Those odd spike days really do skew the average highs. All you gotta do is look up the daily observations and you can clearly see the plethora of low 20's days interspersed with a smattering of mid-30's to 40C+ day here and there.
Sydney having a real ass of a day, has only reached 19.1C as of 5pm. Yesterday my high was 20.6C so a real DISGUSTING WINTRY southerly attack.
7 day forecast here is 5C below average aside from a single 34C day and lows in the low teens which have no place to be spammed in SUMMER High teens and low 20's in southern Vic (including Melbourne) with a 32C day in the mix. A true ****en ASS of a DICKCEMBER.
**** THIS DICKCEMBER
Sydney's forecast are starting to deteriorate aswell, with some low 20's creeping in among 2-3 days of 28-32C.
Invasive mass of southerly tumor covering most of SE Australia. Queensland, NT, and WA are largely disease free. 14°C at Broken Hill--17 below average!
It's a disgrace. ****en below average WANK in forecast in the long term outlook (not that these are known for being accurate) but still disgusting seeing all that evil blue. However, the BOM had us pasted in RED for this failed Dickcember....
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