A quiet weather pattern continues for much of the country this week with ridging in place over much of the continent and only the northern tip of cold fronts clipping southeast and southern Australia this weekend and again early next week.The weather is now starting to reflect the ENSO region tending into an El Niño setting, but the atmosphere is now starting to pick up on what the Pacific Ocean is doing, this leading to the shift in the pattern to a drier one across Australia.
All that excellent rainfall we had through June and to start to July, is now unlikely to be repeated on scale anytime soon and this follows the forecast in the longer range I have been providing for quite some time (since mid 2025) that we would see the weather pattern track drier from mid July and ... here we are.
While many are on holidays and not as tuned into the weather and climate pattern at the moment, sitting pretty like a pig in the literal mud out there, the mud is likely to dry up week on week, especially away from coastal areas. This is due to the persistent run of below average weeks of rainfall and temperatures grading above the average for many inland areas.
This trend is expected to continue for the remainder of Winter.
A footnote to this, El Niño starting to come on during mid to late Winter, tend to strengthen the westerly wind belt and this allows areas exposed to the westerly wind regime to still get rainfall. So fingers crossed that occurs because elsewhere, it is looking drier and much more settled heading into August.
More next week
Karl Lijnders is the founder of Weather Matters, which provides short, medium and longer-range weather forecasts, updated daily, with a focus on Australian ag and what the weather and climate means to you.
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