Australians are most likely in for a third year of wetter weather than usual with forecasters predicting a 70 per cent likelihood of La Nina remaining.
La Nina is a weather phenomenon that leads to cooler but wetter weather, with above-average rainfall in Australia’s east and north.
The weather pattern has been the driver of Australia’s recent bout of devastating floods.
Cooling is under way in the tropical Pacific Ocean, with the Bureau of Meteorology saying La Nina events have developed 70 per cent of the time under these conditions.
This is on top of a “negative” Indian Ocean Dipole, where the waters are cooler in the ocean’s west than in its east, and westerly winds hit Australia’s northwest.
Australia experienced back-to-back La Nina years in 2020 and 2021.
In July, meteorologists put the odds of La Nina returning at 50/50 but a final declaration can’t be made until October or November at the earliest.
If confirmed, it would be the fourth instance of three consecutive La Nina events since records began in 1900.
The mean rainfall at the Sunshine Coast Airport, from 1994 to 2022 is about 1497mm, but it recorded 2064mm in 2020 and 1572mm in 2021 and it has already had 1885mm in 2022.
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