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Hi Allan,
At the risk of harping (apologies if you have endured this before) but, having discussed the art of weather forecasting with a meteorologist, the situation is that specific forecasts (eg that it will be sunny at 3pm and overcast at 9pm in 4 days from now) is guesswork at best.
There are several computer models used by meteorologists, depending on which one you use, you get a different forecast! This fellow laughed about the fact that people place so much faith in the forecast, even for the following day. He said that very often conditions will end up being completely different the next day from what is presented on the evening news. There are just too many variables to be accurately forecasting days and days out.
This explains why the forecast for a day in 4-5 days from now will keep changing from day to day. Today we are being told that there may be a late shower on Saturday. Tomorrow it will be revised, and the day after.
The one area where there can be some confidence is the movement of major pressure systems over the continent. Meteorologists can be reasonably confident that a major pressure system will be around for, say 4-5 days, for example.
All of this accords with my experience. How many times do we read such and such a forecast, only to find that conditions are completely different? I recall countless observing nights where conditions were supposed to be clear, but they have mysteriously clouded out. Other nights when it was supposed to be thick with cloud, and conditions have cleared and turned out spectacularly.
I recall one night at the PC where the conditions were supposed to be clear. I had set up the Mary Rose, and was ready to start observing when a sudden deluge came down. It rained so hard that we all sought refuge in the old Clubhouse, not sure if you were there Allan, but the rain on the tin roof was so loud that it was impossible to communicate with each other without shouting!
Having been involved in observing for 8+ years, my experience is that it is best to make a decision on the evening.
With these things in mind, the dominant weather pattern over south eastern Australia this week is a series of high pressure systems, associated with fine weather. Every day over the next week is expected to be predominantly sunny because of this pattern of high pressure systems.
Based on the dominant pattern of high pressure systems, I think there are good prospects for observing this Saturday night. Fingers crossed!
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