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[title]There are a few near-universal truths about Melburnians: they love to wear black, they refuse to drink anything but the best coffee and they love to complain about the weather. Most of us have been caught in unexpected rain or dressed for the cold when it turned out to be a gorgeous sunny day. Why is the weather in our beloved city so unpredictable?
We got meteorologist Sarah Scully, who has more than 20 years of experience working in cities across Australia for the Bureau of Meteorology, to answer that question for us.
Here are a few things you only know if you've been a meteorologist in Melbourne.
There's a reason why people often feel that the weather forecast is 'wrong'.
"The thing with Melbourne's weather is that there are cold fronts that push through, with hot and dry northwesterly winds behind it. If [the meteorologist] is expecting that cold front to move through Melbourne at 2pm and says the max temperature will be 33 degrees, but then the cold front speeds up and moves through at midday, it might only get up to 26 or 28 degrees. On the scale of mother nature, timing the front incorrectly by just a couple of hours can have a huge impact on the forecast."
Sometimes, you can help your friends ensure their party doesn't get rained on.
"I remember one time, a girlfriend had her son's birthday party at some park in Kew. It was a really bad weather day, and I was at work and I said don't worry — I will watch the radar and tell you when you need to pack it up. I was watching it throughout the day as she had her party and then I rang her and told her to start packing up. It was perfect timing, she got everything back in the car before the bad weather hit."
If you're looking to get into the field, get ready to work long hours.
"The weather never stops, it goes around the clock. For most of my career, I've worked from 7am to 7pm, and then someone takes over from 7pm to 7am. You're either doing the day shift or the night shift. The weather keeps going on holidays, it's there on Christmas and we work right around the clock 24/7."
When the forecast says 'isolated showers,' you might be looking at a beautiful sunny day.
"If the forecast says isolated showers, that might mean that it will rain in Sandringham or in Fitzroy but that all the other suburbs of Melbourne will generally be fine with no rain. A lot of people see the term 'isolated showers' on the forecast and assume that they'll see bits of rain throughout the day, but in reality that means they're very isolated by area."
At the end of the day, keeping Australians safe is at the forefront of their mind.
"When there's a severe weather forecast or fire forecast, that means we're working around the clock. The energy in the office is very frenetic, and we take [keeping Australians safe] very seriously. We're very well aware that there's people on the ground that are experiencing that severe weather event, and being able to get the message out to them about how to prepare for it is really important."
Within Australia, Adelaide probably has the most similar weather to Melbourne.
"It's not all that different, but maybe just a bit warmer since it's a bit further north. It gets similar cold fronts to Melbourne."
Melbourne isn't the only state with wild weather.
"I love thunderstorms, and the bigger they are, the better. I was in Darwin at the beginning of my career to learn about tropical forecasting, and the office up there overlooked the Tiwi Islands where one of the most predictable tropical storms formed each afternoon. It's called 'Hector the Convector', and it's really spectacular and can form in an otherwise blue sky around it. It was used by Australian pilots during the World War as a navigational beacon to find their way back to Australia in their planes."