The Indian Ocean starts to ease its push of moisture towards Australia, but the Pacific Ocean is already kicking into gear, as the next La Nina pushes moisture from the Pacific Ocean towards Australia.
We clearly saw both oceans hard at work in September, with above average rain across the vast majority of the country (except along the southern coastline, and in western Tasmania).
Will the rain keep coming? The simple answer is yes.
The outlook for the rest of the year shows that above average rain is highly likely through much of central and eastern Australia.
The Pacific Ocean will continue to push moist air towards Australia. Whenever that meets up with low pressure it turns into rain.
That is the complex and important part of the ‘will it continue to rain’ question - low pressure.
In eastern Australia rain only falls to the east of troughs (the dashed lines on a weather map). It falls all around low pressure systems when they are over land (the L’s on a weather map), but if that low is situated on the coast, the rain only falls on one side of the low.
On the east coast the rain falls to the south of the low. On the southern coast it falls to the west of the low.
So, we know that we’ll have plenty of moisture to encourage rain in the months ahead, but where the rain actually falls is determined by where the troughs and lows move. That we only know with confidence in the next week.
The latest big rainfall systems track through eastern Australia on Wednesday 5th, followed by another on Friday 7th and into the weekend.
Head to Jane’s Weather to see the day by day rain maps, and what the weather models are projecting for any spot in Australia.
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