Did it rain or what?

We seem to have entered a spell when the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) forecasts precipitation a few days out and then gradually reduces the forecast intensity and/or likelihood as the time gets closer.  Even whe it stays as "Possible showers", they don't seem to occur here.

On 20 March the forecast was as show below:
Basically some form of rain for the next 7 days.  The thrust of this post will be to reflect on what happens.

On the evening of the 20th there were a few thunderstorms around on the radar including this impressive cloud, somewhere near Bungendore.
Getting a slightly different perspective on it the convection column was breaking up, so presumably even underneath it was getting zip (matching exactly that which we received..
On the morning of the 21st the impending humid weather caused a good array of spider webs to be visible.

 In this image the spider's home - a rolled leaf - is visible in the top of the image.
So lets get on to reviews of what happened:

  • 21 March: forecast was "Shower or two".  In the evening there were showers everywhere on radar, except in the ACT.  However, a heavy squall dropped 2.4mm on us at 0120 on 22 March which may be counted as 21 March if the Bureau measures rainfall to 9am..  PASS!
  • 22 March: forecast was "Chance shower or storm." See preceding item for early in the day.  PASS (just).  That was however all that came.  As a result of the overnight rain things were rather misty early in the morning.
By the morning of 23 March the forecast for the 23rd and 24th had changed to "partly cloudy".  I see a Fail coming up!
  • Yep a big fat FAIL for 23 March
  • The original forecast for the 24th was showers.  They vanished on the 22nd but have mysteriously re-emerged on the 23rd. When I got up (0500) there was a big blob of blue on the radar.  However I ignored that and went out birding at 0830 with a friend.  It only started to rain at 1215, as we had pretty much finished.  However by 1425 we had 6.6mm in the gauge and more coming. This would be a Dist. if not for the confusion.  Give them a Credit. 
  • Early on the 25th it seemed that there was a mass of rain moving up from the coast, but skirting to the North of us. So it was: we scored 0.2mm so a  PASS (just).
  • The weather got in early for the 26th with 3.4mm before 0630. At least a  Credit.  The weather is coming up from the coast as indicated by the arrow - the X is our location - in the following image.  I think we might get a bit more!  We ended up with 15mm!

  • The 27th started as the 26th finished with 6mm by 0630.  That day ended up with 8mm so rates another Credit. .
  • Although beyond the forecast I am reviewing they aloso suggested some dampness on the 28th, when we scored 14mm.  Well done that Bureau!
As a result of all the precipitation the Plain was well fogged on the morning of the 29th.

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