The meteorology and forecast potential of the February 2019 northern Queensland floods

The meteorology and forecast potential of the February 2019 northern Queensland floods

The February 2019 floods that engulfed an area of 13 million hectares, stretching from northern Queensland's Gulf region to Townsville, caused the loss of an estimated 670,000 livestock, as well as wide-spread property damage and coastal inundation, with a total economic loss estimated at $5.68 billion AUD. Large numbers of cattle, sheep and native fauna perished from hypothermia, brought on by ~10 days of sustained strong winds (30-40 kph), record rainfall (>600 mm) and day-time temperatures more than 10°C below average. The weather system responsible for the extreme conditions was a monsoon depression that remained mostly stationary just south of the Gulf, drawing in moisture from the Coral Sea, with its slow eastward progression seemingly blocked by a high-pressure system in the Tasman Sea.
Monthly rainfall outlooks for February issued in late January by the Bureau of Meteorology did not show any indication of an impending record-rainfall event. In this talk, I will briefly discuss why this was the case, and show how multi-week forecasts from the Bureau's dynamical prediction system (ACCESS-S1) actually predicted a more than doubling of the probability of extreme weekly rainfall totals a week prior to the floods, as well as increased probabilities of unusually low maximum temperatures and high winds. I will also show how ACCESS-S1 predictions compared to 10 other state-of-the-art dynamical prediction systems from forecast centres across the world, including in predicting a southern livestock wind chill metric. This talk will show that dynamical prediction systems like ACCESS-S1 are capable at getting close to forecasting record-breaking compound events with at least one week's lead-time, however accurate prediction beyond two weeks for a weather event like the northern Queensland floods remains a challenge.
This talk will be presented as part of the Future Drought Fund (FDF) and Northern Australia Climate Program (NACP) session.

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