News

  • Double rainbow over Sydney Harbour, with the Harbour Bridge, Opera House and city skyline beneath dark storm clouds.

    Do cities receive more rain, and what are the satellites missing?

    Sydney has experienced more than its fair share of flash flooding and heavy downpours in recent years, prompting an obvious question: does the city itself influence the rain that falls on it? Can concrete, roads and high-rise buildings actually change local rainfall? For anyone impacted by extreme precipitation in urban areas, it is more than…

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  • Heavy rain splashing onto a wet road, with blurred green foliage in the background.

    Where El Niño or La Niña forms in the Pacific is crucial to Australian impacts

    When it comes to rainfall impacts on Australia, not all El Niño events affect us in the same way. Some leave large parts of eastern Australia dry, while others have a stronger influence on the Northern Territory. Scientists have recognised these different types of El Niño for years, but understanding exactly why they produce distinctly…

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  • A large array of blue solar panels stretches across the foreground beneath a bright blue sky filled with towering white cumulus clouds. Sunlight reflects off the panels, highlighting the contrast between renewable energy infrastructure and the dramatic cloud-filled atmosphere.

    Australia’s future electricity grid may be more resilient to climate variability than expected

    On hot summer afternoons or still winter mornings, Australia’s electricity grid increasingly depends on the weather. As more wind turbines and solar farms replace fossil fuels, understanding how climate variability affects electricity supply has become an important question.  And with Australia building an electricity system powered increasingly by wind and solar, one question has become…

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  • A dramatic nighttime thunderstorm illuminates the sky as multiple lightning bolts strike the ground beneath a towering, swirling cumulonimbus cloud. The bright flashes reveal layered cloud structures overhead, while distant hills and the lights of a town or industrial area line the horizon below. The foreground is in deep shadow, emphasizing the contrast between the dark landscape and the brilliant lightning.

    Member Profile: Meet Tim Raupach, proud member of the thunderstorm nerd club

    When it comes to making the most of his involvement with 21st Century Weather, self-confessed thunderstorm nerd Dr Tim Raupach is a strict adherent to the three Cs – collaboration, community and Cumulus. An Industry Scientia Senior Lecturer with the Institute for Climate Risk and Response at the University of New South Wales in Sydney,…

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  • White-capped waves roll across a rough ocean beneath a blue sky dotted with scattered clouds. In the distance, several offshore wind turbines are visible on the horizon, illustrating the connection between coastal weather and renewable energy generation.

    Study finds sea breeze could enhance Australia’s future energy grid

    When the temperature climbs into the high thirties, millions of Australians reach for the same switch. Air conditioners hum into life, homes cool down, and electricity demand begins its steady climb towards the evening peak. Keeping enough power flowing on those hot summer afternoons is already one of the biggest challenges facing the electricity grid,…

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