Attributions of rainfall anomalies to weather systems and their spatio‐temporal variability in Victoria, southeast Australia are investigated with a multimethod weather type dataset and two popularly used gridded daily rainfall datasets for the period 1979–2015. The rainfall anomalies before, during and after the Millennium Drought (1997–2009) are compared to quantify the temporal variability of rainfall responses to weather t...

Most of the rainfall in southern Australia is associated with cyclones, cold fronts, and thunderstorms, and cases when these weather systems co-occur are particularly likely to cause extreme rainfall. Rainfall declines in some parts of southern Australia during the cool half of the year in recent decades have previously been attributed to decreases in the rainfall from fronts and/or cyclones, while thunderstorm-related rainfal...

A systematic analysis of the main weather types influencing southern Australian rainfall is presented for the period 1979–2015. This incorporates two multi-method datasets of cold fronts and low pressure systems, which indicate the more robust fronts and lows as distinguished from the weaker and less impactful events that are often indicated only by a single method. The front and low pressure system datasets are then combined...

High‐resolution reanalyses offer the potential to improve our understanding of midlatitude cyclones, particularly smaller‐scale systems and those with complex structures. However, previous studies have demonstrated large variations in the frequency and characteristics of Australian midlatitude cyclones between reanalyses when using their native resolution. In this paper we use satellite observations of winds and rainfall in or...

Extratropical and subtropical cyclones, and their associated fronts, produce the majority of rainfall and extreme weather in the mid‐latitudes around the world. In the Southern Hemisphere in particular, where observations are sparse, we have limited knowledge of their long‐term variability and trends. While the long time period of the 20th Century Reanalysis ( 20CR ) offers potential to assess longer‐term changes, the lack of...