Onset, active and break periods of the Australian monsoon

Abstract

Four operational techniques of monsoon monitoring the Australian monsoon at Darwin have been developed in the Darwin Regional Specialised Meteorological Centre. Two techniques used the rainfall only criteria and look into the onset of wet season rainfall/monsoon rainfall. The other two techniques are based purely on Darwin wind data. The data used for the study ranges from 14 to 21 years. The main purpose of the study is to develop near-real time monitoring tools for the Australian monsoon at Darwin. The average date of onset of the monsoon ranges from 19 December to 30 December. The average date of monsoon onset is 28 December. In eleven out of twenty-one years the onset date remained within three days range between the two rainfall techniques, whereas it is eleven out of fourteen years between the wind techniques. The median number of active monsoon spells in a wet season is 3 for the rainfall techniques and 6 for the wind techniques. The average length of each active monsoon spell is around 4 days for all of the techniques. The date of onset of the monsoon has shown negative correlation with the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) that is late onset is found to occur in El Nino years while early onset is more likely in La Nina years.