Australia

A deluge of rain in the 24 hours to 9am yesterday saw a number of records broken for Ballina, all within the first week of the month. 

The start of this September is a stark contrast to those of the last decade with record breaking rainfall in the first 5 days. 

A strong cold front will cross the alpine region on Friday, bringing a good amount of snow for those heading to the resorts this weekend.

Standing in front of the microphone in the searing bare heat outside the Tully family's house paddock, the Prime Minister holds up a message of hope.

It is a photo of a lush green paddock, taken on the same barren earth where politicians and the media pack are standing. The image was taken just two years ago on the same land.

A trough over southeastern interior Australia is advancing eastwards today bringing showery rain and thunderstorms over a wide area, including drought areas in New South Wales. This wet weather will persist until this morning, then eases today as the system moves east to the coast and out over the Tasman Sea.

The 2018 snow season has been one of the best since 2004 for this point of the season, with more of the white stuff on its way.

A new official average snow depth of 224.6 cm was recorded at Spencers Creek in the Snowy Mountains on Thursday 23rd. This makes it one of the best snow season since 2000, especially given that more is on the way from Sunday.

There is good news for the serious drought in New South Wales - good rain is coming. A midlatitude trough over the eastern interior of Australia will deepen and interact with a surface low pressure system extending from northern Queensland. It will bring fair amount of rain over interior southern Queensland and northern New South Wales on Friday and Saturday.

A vigorous frontal system has brought some of the strongest wind gusts in several years across the Apple Island.

Winds peaked at 113km/h in Strahan, 98km/h in Yarram and 96km/h in Grove, making it the windiest day in four years for these stations in Tasmania. 

Even though we are not yet half way through August, Perth has already recorded higher than average rainfall.

The 20.0mm of rain that fell last night tipped Perth above average.

A total of 133.0mm has been collected so far this month, as of 09:00 WST this morning, equating to about 108% of the average August rainfall.

The word drought is a such an emotive word- but what does drought mean? 

A cold front from the Tasman Sea is tracking towards the western side of New Zealand today after delivering a blast of wind and rain to southern Australia in recent days. The front will move onto the South Island and sweep the western side northwards to reach the North Island on Wednesday.

Heavy rainfall is expected in Westland from Tuesday night to Wednesday morning.