Australia’s two jet streams – the sub-tropical jet and the polar jet – have combined over the south-east of the continent.
The strong winds in eastern Australia this week are driven by climate change interfering with “jet streams” – the powerful high-altitude winds that encircle the globe.
Dr Milton Speer, a visiting fellow in the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences at the University of Technology Sydney, said: “The jet streams are the main thing that are affecting the weather in southeastern Australia at the moment.” Speer said the sub-tropical jet and the polar jet were usually split during the cooler months from about April to October. While they came together in the summer months, they usually sat over the Southern Ocean below the continent.
Dr Martin Jucker, an expert in atmospheric dynamics and climatology at the University of NSW, said the polar jet affected surface winds more strongly than the sub-tropical jet.
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