It may be late winter in Australia but we’ve been recently reminded just how hot it can get when the sun is directly overhead in your part of the world.
As temperatures soared to record breaking highs in Europe in July, the planet as a whole recorded its hottest month on record.
That may leave you wondering what Australia’s upcoming summer could be like… especially when we add El Niño into the mix.
Our past three summers were affected by La Niña in the Pacific.
That drove moist air into Australia, and led to extensive periods where northern Australia was covered in cloud.
That meant the vast desert of the interior wasn’t sizzling in the sun, so it wasn’t able to bake and heat up. Instead of a pool of hot and dry air in the middle of Australia, we had a pool of warm and moist air.
Whenever the synoptic pattern introduced a wind that blew from the interior (i.e. a northeasterly for Perth, a northerly in Adelaide, a northwesterly in Melbourne, and a westerly in Sydney and Brisbane), then it was warm and humid, rather than hot and dry.
That led to two summers in a row where Melbourne failed to reach 40C, and one summer where it just reached 40.5C. There were countless other examples in the eastern states where extreme heat that we remember from summers before did not materialise.
It also led to devastating flooding, with so much extra moisture to fuel our weather systems.
This summer we’re much less likely to see that build up of moist air over the interior.
It is highly likely that we’ll go back to having a persistent pool of extreme heat ready to rush into the west, south and east, whenever the winds push it there.
High pressure is the harbinger of an outbreak of this heat, because if the high is to your east, you’re on the hot side of the high.
If the high can sit for a few days, it’s not just one day of extreme heat but a few in a row - often with hot nights in between, making the heatwave more dangerous.
We can’t see the outlook for summer just yet, but the outlook for spring is very red:
Above: Latest projection for maximum temperatures from BoM showing the vast majority of the nation has at least an 80% chance of being warmer than average (overall) from September to November.
It all depends on how often we have a high in the right spot to push the heat to us. If the high sits to our west for extensive periods then people will be grumbling about another cold summer - but know that this time the pool of heat will be ready over the interior… ready to strike when the wind is right.
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