The week ahead in one line
High pressure has parked itself over the region and it is not in a hurry. That means dry days, clear skies, and cold starts in the valley. The station read 4.7°C this morning with nothing in the gauge, and the pattern points to more of the same for the first half of the week.
This is textbook late July for us. The air is dry, the nights are long, and the cold sinks into the valley floor overnight while the days warm up nicely once the sun gets over the range.
Day by day
| Day | Date | Min | Max | Rain Chance | Outlook |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | 27 July | 2°C | 22°C | 2% | Sunny, cold start |
| Tuesday | 28 July | 3°C | 23°C | 3% | Sunny again, slightly warmer |
| Wednesday | 29 July | 3°C | 23°C | 1% | Sunny all day |
A 20 degree swing between the overnight low and the afternoon high is a big spread. Dress in layers, because 3°C at 6am and 23°C at 2pm are two different days.
How last week’s forecasts went
Being straight with you here. The Dayboro Model composite score did not compute over the last 30 days, so I have no number to give you on our own accuracy. I would rather say that than quote something I cannot back up. The BOM numbers did come through. Their temperature accuracy over the same 30 days sat at 95.2%, which is genuinely good, while their overall composite score landed at 65.2%. That gap tells you the usual story. Temperatures are the easy part. Rain timing and rain amount are where forecasts come unstuck.
Worth flagging one thing in this week’s data. The gridded model for our area is running overnight minimums around 9 to 10°C, while the Dayboro Model has us at 2 to 3°C. That is not a small difference. The grid does not see our valley. Cold air slides off the D’Aguilar slopes and pools on the flats overnight, so the station regularly reads well below whatever the broad-scale model says. Trust the low number.
The bigger picture
Across the southeast the week averages out around 19.6°C for maximums and 10.4°C overnight, with a 29% chance of rain and roughly 20mm expected over the full seven days. Almost none of that lands in the first three days. It sits later in the week as the ridge starts to break down.
Further north it is dry as a bone. The Top End is at 2% rain chance and the Townsville dry tropics at 5%. The only decent moisture in the state is up in the wet tropics, where Cairns and Innisfail are looking at 40% and about 19mm. Classic dry season split. The tropics get their rain from the coast, we get ours from troughs, and there is no trough in our patch right now.
Garden and outdoor tip
Three sunny days with almost no rain and low humidity means your soil will dry out faster than the mild temperatures suggest. Water deeply in the morning, not the evening. Watering late leaves the beds damp through a very cold night, which does your seedlings no favours at all. Check the station before you plant anything tender this week. A 2°C reading in the valley with clear skies means heavy dew and a bitter start, so hold off on the tomatoes and beans a bit longer.
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