Jane Bunn from Jane’s Weather speaks with host Kirsten Diprose.
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00:00Hi, welcome to ABRICAST. Kirsten Dipprose here and Jane Barn is with us. She's a meteorologist,
00:13weather presenter and of course has Jane's weather. Welcome to ABRICAST.
00:18Very lovely to be here. Thank you.
00:21Summer's approaching. What does that mean in terms of the Pacific Ocean and how that
00:25might influence the climate?
00:27Well, at this time of year, we do like to look at what's happening in the Pacific Ocean
00:31because it can have a big impact on what our day-to-day weather ends up being in terms
00:35of how much rain we have and whether we have heatwaves. Over on our side of the ocean,
00:40we end up getting all this moisture pushed towards us. So it means as we go into this
00:44summer, we'll have extra moisture to play with. Now that's just part one of the rainfall
00:49equation. We need to have moisture. We also have to have instability, but that tells us
00:53that we're going to have extra moisture available. So when we do get those rain systems
00:57moving through, they could have heavier rain than we're used to.
01:00Does that mean La Nina for us or for other parts of the world?
01:04That is the big million dollar question. So there are global agencies. Australia is one
01:10of them. The US is another. It's a big player in this field. And as we're heading into summer,
01:15it looks like we're heading towards that La Nina threshold. Now I say towards because
01:20Some may say, yes, we're crossing it. Others may go, no, we haven't quite reached it yet.
01:25And the difference here is the US has a different threshold to what Australia has. This summer,
01:31we're likely to see at least some La Nina effects, i.e. all that extra moisture being
01:35pushed towards us.
01:36We had La Nina. It was a bit confusing for some people. We had rain in parts and then
01:42not in others. You look forward a lot, but do you ever look back and kind of assess just
01:47what, what the hell happened?
01:49It's nice to look back so you can go, okay, because that, that and that happened, we ended
01:53up with this particular situation. Now think back to last summer, we actually had the Tasman
01:58Sea that was incredibly warmer than average. And so that became the new source of moisture.
02:03So instead of the Pacific taking that moisture away, the Tasman delivered it and delivered
02:08it to large parts of the country. In terms of a normal year, now there is all this extra
02:13energy that's available in the atmosphere. It's got to go somewhere. So it has effects
02:17and highs are stronger and bigger and they last longer. Now cold fronts as they come
02:21through can be stronger or they're shifted southwards or they're shifted further north.
02:25When things come through, they have a bigger impact than what they used to do. When the
02:29extremes come in, you notice them more because they've got more power behind them. Now, as
02:34we get into it, the day to day nitty gritty, what's happening hour by hour, am I in the
02:38path of these thunderstorms or am I missing out because I'm on the other side of the trough?
02:43Have a look at that sort of thing. At Jane's Weather, that's exactly what we do. We have
02:47the best of the modelling. You can put your weather station in there and we can make it
02:51hyper local to your conditions and then help you unpack. It's not just a standard forecast.
02:57It's how you can use that decision making about what you've got to do on the farm today.
03:00Jane, thank you so much for joining us on ABRICAST. We'll speak to you soon.