When the East Coast’s rainy days were on the rise in late 2020, there was definitely cause for celebration. After the horrors of the previous summer’s bushfires and the years of drought that caused them, some wet weather was most welcome. However, after a year and a half of higher-than-average rainfall, which has led to some of the worst floodings in decades in parts of Northern NSW, we’re all now hoping for an end to the downpours. Unfortunately, the Bureau of Metrology (BOM) has come forward to rain on our collective parade with the news that the incessantly wet weather is likely to continue throughout April to June.
This is especially dire news for those northern parts of the state that have already been flooded, as dams are already full and soils saturated. This news comes hot on the heels of data that declared March 2022 as Sydney’s rainiest on record. This drenching has been caused in part by the La Niña weather event in the Pacific, which is now in its second consecutive year. It is not unheard of for La Niñas, which occur roughly once a decade, to last for three years – the last time this happened in Australia was between 1998 and 2001. However, BOM’s weather experts don’t believe we’re in for another washed-out summer.
Modelling from both Australian and European meteorologists suggests weather patterns should return to a ‘neutral’ state by late autumn or early winter, which should in turn give Australia a far dryer spring and summer later this year. Data already suggests that the current La Niña is waning, however, it is doing so far less rapidly than is typically expected. This could be due to the influence of global warming, as well as other factors like the Indian Ocean Dipole – which refers to the annual changes in tropical sea temperatures – and the Southern Annular Mode – the atmospheric currents around the Antarctic. So what does that all mean? It is now far harder for meteorologists to predict with certainty how the weather may behave in the coming months, so don’t start dreaming of a sunny summer just yet.