It's raining! It's raining!

Oh and pics of Penny? she stayed nice and dry, maybe I will need to buy her some bathers.

Victoria's wettest summer obliterates rainfall record
Megan Levy
February 18, 2011 - 7:48AM


A taxi is submerged on Cranbourne Road at Narre Warren South where heavy rain caused flooding earlier this month. Photo: Craig Sillitoe

Victorians have endured the state’s wettest summer on record, with the moist, tropical conditions obliterating the previous rainfall record set exactly a century ago.

The state will have been drenched in twice the average summer rainfall by the time the season draws to a close this month, with further downpours forecast to fall tonight and into tomorrow.

Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Terry Ryan said the state had already recorded a staggering 290 millimetres of rain this summer, with nearly two weeks of the season still remaining.

That eclipsed the previous record high set in the summer of 1910-11, when 237 millimetres of rain soaked the state.

The average summer rainfall is between 155-160 millimetres.

‘‘We’ve got another week and a bit to go, and we’ve got a rain event coming up tonight and into Saturday morning, so we’re going to probably crack 300 millimetres. This is well and truly our wettest summer,’’ Mr Ryan said.

December was the fifth wettest on record, followed by the wettest January ever on record.

Mr Ryan said unusual weather conditions and one of the strongest La Nina events ever experienced had brought tropical air over the state to create the historically wet summer.

‘‘Most of the time it has been very humid and we’ve just needed subtle lifting to get that air to rise and get a lot of heavy rainfall out of the sky,’’ he said.

‘‘The La Nina effect means that the oceans are very moist over eastern Australia, the trade winds blow properly, and we get a lot of tropical lows forming.

‘‘The thing about this summer is a couple of those lows have finished up down in Victoria.

‘‘One came down in January to bring us the floods to western Victoria. It came from the Northern Territory, right into western Victoria, which is quite an unusual set of circumstances to give us 200 millimetres of rain in some areas of western Victoria.’’

Ex-cyclones Anthony and Yasi had maintained that level of moisture across the state this month, he said....<cont>

Severe thunderstorms get close to Adelaide
Brett Dutschke, Tuesday February 15, 2011 - 18:46 EDT
On Tuesday afternoon the biggest storms since early December were getting closer to Adelaide, with flash flooding and damaging winds still a threat into the evening.

Storms formed over the Riverland early this afternoon and headed across the Murraylands and Mount Lofty Ranges for Adelaide, bringing heavy downpours.

Hansborough, just north of Kapunda, picked up 44mm in under two hours.
In the Barossa Valley, Nuriootpa gained 46mm in about an hour. These are their heaviest downpours since early December, when widespread heavy storms brought flooding to Adelaide and the surrounding areas.

Nearer the Murray, Swan Reach gained 27mm in under an hour.

Whilst flash flooding is the most likely severe feature from these storms, they will not bring as much rain as in early December due to there being a little less moisture in the air this time.

The storms should die out later in the evening but on Wednesday they will again be a chance due to a low pressure trough lingering over the region.

However, Wednesday's storms are less likely to be severe due to the trough losing some instability.

Adelaide is still a chance for one on Wednesday afternoon, most likely on the Hills.

People for the Lands could not go last fortnight because of heavy rains up there....we expect to make it up there on Monday I guess. I have some fabulous photos of Pukatja (Ernabella) in deluge sent by a colleague who lives up there.