Miscellany

The bushfire situation across Australia is currently in a relative state of calm, with fire weather conditions having moderated considerably over the past few days. That said, there is a fire ban has been issued for Thursday in NSW west of the ranges.

Much of the fire activity in QLD and NSW reported over the weekend is controlled or being brought under control. A large area of active fire is noted on NAFI in the central NT. This current activity is a continuation of a fire which began last week (the then smaller western ones, in particular). There is light to moderate activity from those fires westward to the Dampier Peninsula...

The image doesn't really have much of anything to do with fire. If you insist, you can see some general smoke in the NW corner (upper left) of the image. Rather, the midday-from-the-Terra-MODIS image shows a spectacular comma cloud spanning the breadth of the continent. For an idea of size, the image is 2000 x 1600 km. In this case, the cloud structure is spawned by a deep cut-off low pressure system in the mid- and upper-troposphere. A beauty only knowable from space.

This system (and its precursors) has brought a significant amount of precipitation to inland western QLD and northeastern SA. It is forecast to bring more rain to parts of the southeast, mainly VIC and SA...little or no relief for NSW.