The Northern Australian Monsoon ( Darwin in particular )

Another angry lookin' sky late this afternoon.....thunder rumbling away in the distance.

28mm overnight at home, which puts my total since the 1st Jan at 1004.3mm.
Thats a 'pass' mark !

Ahh sorry, my mistake, I missunderstood your post. 
I'm about 5klm as the crow flies from the Airport....its not unusual to have vastly differing rainfall tallies around the suburbs. A mate out at Palmerston ( 20 klm away ) has 1220mm year to date.
Here's some tallies since Oct 1st around the North

How are we travelling for the wet season so far around the tropics

My personal total since October 1st until February 17 is 1,782.3mm. ( Gunn Point ) What did you get since Oct 1st in the tropics.

Now for BOM official for various locations for the same period.

NT

Darwin AP: 1,480.6mm

Batchelor AP: 864.6mm

Noonamah: 1,685mm

Central Arnhem: 958.4mm

Mount Bundey North: 1,099.8mm

Charles Point: 1,514.4mm

Dunn in Mirrie: 1,368mm

Gunn Point: 1,480.6mm

Jabiru: 1,131.2mm

Point Stuart: 1,120.6mm

Tindal (Katherine): 778.6mm

Gove AP: 843.8mm

QLD

Mackay AP: 639.6mm

Bowen AP: 459.6mm

Alva Beach: 787.8mm

Townsville AP: 371.2mm

Mutarnee: 1,091mm

Ingham: 1,551.6mm

Cardwell: 1,413mm

Innisfail AP: 1,165.4mm

South Johnstone: 1,497.2mm

Walkamin: 637.8mm

Cairns AP: 1,051.4mm

Cairns City: 1,242mm

Mareeba: 586.2mm

Cooktown: 661.6mm

Coen AP: 1,067.4mm

Lockhart River: 1,297.2mm

Weipa: 1,270.8mm

Horn Island: 1,138.4mm

Normanton: 611mm

Mornington Island: 708.2mm

Burketown: 501.6mm

Cloncurry AP: 368.2mm

Mt Isa: 331.4mm

Camooweal: 371.8mm

WA

Kununurra AP: 733mm

Wyndham AP: 573.6mm

Fitzroy Crossing: 661.6mm

Halls creek: 620.6mm

Derby AP: 850.2mm

Broome AP: 384.7mm

Port Hedland AP: 204.8mm

Karratha AP: 175.4mm

Onslow AP: 43.4mm

EXTERNAL TERRITORIES.

Christmas Island: 1,113.8mm

Cocos Island: 791.8mm

EWN Alerts - Northern Territory

15:57 Feb 21 NT Severe Thunderstorm Warning: Heavy Rain. Katherine, Timber Creek, Barunga and Dorisvale
Details:
NT Severe Thunderstorm Warning: Heavy Rain
For people in parts of Daly, Carpentaria and Gregory districts.
Issued at 3:57 pm Sunday, 21 February 2021.
PERSISTENT THUNDERSTORMS ARE STARTING TO DEVELOP AROUND THE KATHERINE REGION
Weather Situation: A tropical low over the Daly District is generating long lived thunderstorms in the warning area.
Severe thunderstorms are likely to produce heavy rainfall that may lead to flash flooding in the warning area over the next several hours. Locations which may be affected include Katherine, Timber Creek, Barunga and Dorisvale.
95mm has been recorded at Bradshaw since 9am this morning.
The Northern Territory Emergency Service advises that people should:
* slow down and turn your headlights on
* create your own sandbags if there is flooding, by using pillow cases or shopping bags filled with sand and place them around doorways to protect your home
* secure loose outside objects
* ensure pets and animals are safe
* avoid remaining in the open when storms threaten
* pull over if it is raining heavily and you cannot see, park with your hazard lights on until the rain clears
* avoid driving into water of unknown depth and current
* for emergency help in floods, storms and cyclones, contact the NTES on 132 500. For more safety tips visit www.securent.nt.gov.au
Alert Source: Bureau of Meteorology.

24 image panorama of the Katherine River at 15m yesterday evening. ( photo by Jacci Ingham )

Pretty ballsy in a car ! My son has a lifted 4wd and reckons the water in the Palmerton suburb of Roseberry was up to his bonnet !

A classic 'Top Ender' storm over on the Gove Peninsular ( photo by Glen Young )
"One of the locals here in town named Glenn Young snapped this pic here in Gove today and gave me permission to repost it here. This was the storm that developed right over the top of the BOM office and gave us 37mm in just over half an hour.

Love how isolated it is.. and also the fact that I was lucky enough to be underneath it at the time!"

We are oficially in a 'monsoon break' period atm..... sunshine all of a sudden, no rain, and a distinct drop in humidity over the last 3 days. Does this mean the 'Wet' is done and dusted for 20/21 ? Not at all.... although I will make a brave prediction of less than average monthly tally for my suburb of Darwin ( Leanyer ) for the month of March. Normally score 331.7mm, but have had as high as 708.6mm back in 2007. And only 83.4mm in 2014. March and April can still get Cyclonic conditions across the Top End, but depending where they cross the coast depends on the rainfall tallies.
The BOM gauge at Leanyer will end up with 374.8mm, as opposed to the mean of 380.2mm for February. So pretty well spot on for Feb averages. My home gauge recorded 367.7mm for Feb ( providing no rain between now and 9.00am tomorrow 28th morning.)
From a local weather guru ( Pilko )
"Well if you were up early this morning in the Top End you would have really felt like it was the dry season.

Cool and relatively clear although the humidity was still high it was a far change from previous days.

And it’s going to stay like that for a short while as the action migrates to the east, north and west.

The satellite map shows the monsoon trough has returned to the waters either side of the continent and although the cloud thru the Arafura Sea is not classed as a monsoon as such, it certainly resembles a weak inactive link to Cyclone Marian to the west and a developing low off Cape York.

Despite the doom and gloom for us Top Enders in that us rain lovers will have to go a bit of “cold turkey” for a few days, there will still be enough instability around to produce a few showers and storms during the afternoon and evening, although these will be more confined to the north east Top End and coastal / island localities.

While our weather takes a break, north QLD will take over as the weather focal point in coming days as a tropical low deepens to the NE of Cairns.

Still a bit of uncertainty on what will happen with this low eventually but the general consensus is that it will eventually head SE away from the Australian mainland.

So for today it’s a repeat of yesterday for Top Enders and another chance of a late arvo shower or storm.

It’s going to be hot and humid tho so please stay hydrated.

Have a great day

Its a particularly filthy 'monsoonal break' period atm.... I've only recorded 1.6mm in the last week. In fact I have the garden sprinklers on atm, a sorry state of affairs in early March. Was a warm night last night as well, with dry westerlies blowing keeping the overnight min at about 29c


I've had a bit of a look at the 'extreme' hot days in Darwin since the Airport site opened in 1941. Using 35c ( 95f ) to define the term 'hot' ( and our coastal location only 12S of the Equator means that +35c days are generally well above average ). Number of such days by the decade.

!941 - 1949
54 days +35c
1950 - 1959
81 days +35c
1960 - 1969
78 days +35c
1970 - 1979
111 days +35c
1980 - 1989
82 days +35c
1990 - 1999
95 days +35c
2000 - 2009
190 days +35c
2010 - 2019
223 days +35c
And in the year 2020 there were 42 days +35c !

So whenever someone casually remarks, "its gettin' hotter....", well while it barely shows up on the long term data sets, because we have also experienced an increase in mean rainfall, therefore more cloudy days and cooler temps on those days offset the extreme days to some extent. But the figures clearly show we are experiencing more extreme heat days in the last couple of decades.