Currently in Melbourne — January 23rd, 2023

The weather, currently.

Today will be partly cloudy, with a slight chance of a shower in the afternoon and evening. The overnight low of 17˚C arrived just after midnight Sunday, staying steady all night. Temperatures will climb throughout the day to the forecast top of 27˚C by 4pm. Light southerly winds of 15 to 20 km/h in the late afternoon will taper off in the late evening. The UV rating will be very high today at 10. We’re due for lovely temperate summer days in this final week of school holidays, so if you have kids to entertain, get out and make the most of it.

— Megan Herbert

What you need to know, currently.

Scientists studying water supply focus on weeks following peak snowpack

Water managers in the Colorado River basin are gaining a better understanding of how the weeks after peak snowpack can influence on the year’s water supply.

Currently Weather ServiceCurrently

“Water managers in the Colorado River basin are gaining a better understanding that what happens in the weeks after peak snowpack — not just how much snow accumulated over the winter — can have an outsize influence on the year’s water supply.

Water year 2021 was historically bad, with an upper basin snowpack that peaked around 90% of average but translated to only 36% of average runoff into Lake Powell, according to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. It was the second-worst runoff on record after 2002. One of the culprits was exceptionally thirsty soils from 2020’s hot and dry summer and fall, which soaked up snowmelt before runoff made it to streams. But those dry soils are only part of the story.”

Read the full story, originally published by Heather Sackett in Aspen Journalism here.

What you can do, currently.