The meteorology of the 2019 North Queensland floods

In January-February 2019, a monsoon low developed over northeastern Australia and brought extreme flooding to much of tropical Queensland. The European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts reanalyses are used to explain the formation and severity of the event. Strong anticyclonic Rossby wave breaking to the southeast of Australia produced weak steering winds over northern Australia, and consequently the low remained nearly stationary for over a week, contributing to the extreme rainfall. Furthermore, the tropical moist margin was deformed by a series of disturbances along the monsoon trough, which drew moist maritime air over land. The event examined has much in common with the composite mean of slow-moving potential vorticity anomalies in North Queensland, including weak background winds and heavy precipitation. An ensemble subseasonal forecast with the Australian Bureau of Meteorology's Australian Community Climate and Earth System Simulator Seasonal prediction version system 1 shows the same relationship between the background flow, the steering, and the subsequent rainfall. Hence, accurately forecasting the background winds is a prerequisite to forecasting such extreme rainfall. Slow-moving weather systems in the Tropics, such as the monsoon low that formed in January-Februry 2019 over North Queensland, can bring destructive flooding to local communities. In this article we demonstrate a link between midlatitude Rossby wave breaking, weak background winds in the Tropics, and weak system steering resulting in heavy rainfall. This relationship is apparent in both a composite analysis and a case study of the North Queensland 2019 monsoon low. image