Seasonal Rainfall Patterns in Australia. Please note this list is not exhaustive—for a more complete summary of individual events, including those affecting smaller geographical regions or causing limited damage, please consult the Monthly Weather Review. A significant heatwave affected much of northwest to southeast Queensland around the middle of November. Reference: Johnson, K. (1992), The AUSMAP Atlas of Australia. This sometimes results in Northern Australia being subject to severe tropical cyclones, resulting in serious flooding. This was in addition to the existing multi-year rainfall deficiencies in the region for the period commencing in early 2018. Rainfall for the year was below to very much below average for some parts of Australia, including in southeastern Queensland, the west and southwest of Western Australia, and western Tasmania. Australia is home to some of the driest regions in the world, while also being subject to periods of heavy rainfall and cyclones. Our rainfall pattern is strongly seasonal, with large year-to-year variations. Perth has more sunny days annually than any other Australian capital city. Several electricity transmission towers were knocked to the ground near Colac, with Mt Gellibrand reporting a maximum wind gust of 120 km/h. The national rainfall dataset commences in 1900. Without a significant global reduction in the emission of greenhouse gases, Australia is projected to experience an increase in average temperature of between 2.8° and 5.1° Celsius by the year 2090 13. Severe thunderstorms affected the Capricornia and Central Highlands districts of Queensland on 19 April, with giant hail, up to 8 cm in diameter, reported around Rockhampton and Yeppoon. The hardest hit areas were to the west of Geelong. The most severe Australian flood on record occurred in Gundagai, NSW, as far back as 1852, which took the lives of 89 people 11. Although going further up North in Queensland, areas in Bamaga and Weipa are subject to much heavier rainfall, with about 75 rainfall days per year. February and March followed a similar trend, experiencing slightly more rain than usual. The rainfall in Sydney is significant, with precipitation even during the driest month. Perth had lower than average rainfall for the year, while annual rainfall was well above average for Melbourne, Canberra, and Sydney. All of the capital cities, except Adelaide, observed warmer than average annual mean minimum temperatures. Tropical lows affected the west of the country around mid-December, bringing torrential rain there too. Moisture from the remnants of ex-tropical cyclone Esther fed into a slow-moving trough over inland New South Wales, generating widespread rain and occasional intense thunderstorms over southeastern Australia. In Victoria the State Emergency Services received more than 300 calls for assistance on 5 March, mostly related to flooding and building damage, while flash flooding caused disruptions to transport. Annual rainfall was above average across large parts of New South Wales, parts of South Australia between the Flinders Ranges and Lake Eyre / Kati Thanda, and much of northern and eastern Western Australia, and much of the Northern Territory. In addition to the influence of natural drivers, Australia's climate is increasingly affected by global warming and natural variability takes place on top of this background trend. Widespread rainfall on 20 and 22 January helped reduce the number of uncontained bushfires. The first four months of the year were warmer than average for large parts of Australia, particularly across the north, while the southeast experienced cooler than average mean maximum temperatures in February to April. Most capital cities were warmer than average in 2020. The drying trend is particularly strong for May–July across southwest Western Australia; this region has seen May–July rainfall decrease by around 20% since 1970. The island continent of Australia features a wide range of climatic zones, from the tropical regions of the north, through the arid expanses of the interior, to the temperate regions of the south. Below average rainfall over the southern half of Australia around the middle of the year is a reflection of this pattern. September was a warm month for all of Australia, with both mean maximum and mean minimum temperatures very much warmer than average over much of the continent. This section also experiences extreme heat and dangerous UV index levels, along with periods of drought. Meanwhile behind the cold front and trough some stations in South Australia and Victoria set records for their coolest January day on record, and some in Western Australia observed record low daily minimum temperatures for January. Rainfall observations Australia has the lowest average annual rainfall of all inhabited continents. In general, baseline climatological periods try to make use of the period with the best data coverage. Major flooding also occurred in the lower Balonne River in early March, resulting from heavy rainfall over the Balonne and Maranoa rivers during February. Widespread heavy rainfall during the first half of February across much of Queensland and along the east coast of Australia contributed to both riverine and flash flooding in some areas of New South Wales and Queensland. Below is an interactive rainfall map of Australia that allows you to click through into each city and town to learn the average mm of rainfall per year, as well as the average number of rainfall days per year. Of the ten warmest years, only one (1998) occurred before 2005. Broadly, Australia can be divided into 2 seasonal rainfall regimes: the north and the south. Damien intensified to a severe system (category 3) before making landfall over the Karratha and Dampier region in the afternoon of the 8th. This was however to a much smaller extent. The Dampier weather radar sustained significant damage, and Karratha Airport recorded a 194 km/h wind gust on the 8th—its highest gust in 17 years of wind observations. Rainfall during February assisted in the management of bushfires which had been burning in some areas of eastern Australia since late 2019. A large number of cold fronts brought rain to the South West Land Division during November in what had otherwise been a sequence of generally below average rainfall months for that part of Western Australia since April. Ahead of the front many stations in New South Wales observed their warmest January day on record on the 4th or 5th. A cold front and associated trough crossed Victoria during 27 August, resulting in squally westerly winds across southern and mountain districts; Wilsons Promontory Lighthouse reported a wind gust of 157 km/h (85 kts). Second-warmest year on record for Western Australia. All fires were contained by the end of February. Concentrations of all the major long-lived greenhouse gases in the atmosphere continued to rise in 2020 despite a temporary slow-down in global fossil fuel emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) during early 2020 associated with the COVID–19 pandemic. Those in the basin's north, though, only rose from about 6 per cent full to just 23.6 per cent. 2. Though Australia national rainfall index fluctuated substantially in recent years, it tended to decrease through 1972 - 2001 period ending at 717 mm per year in 2001. As can be seen above, projected by the Bureau of Meteorology and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) shows that there won’t be a general increase or decrease in rainfall across the whole of Australia, but rather varied changes across different regions. This data was gathered from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, among other sources, which can be viewed in table format here. Plan ahead with this information on weather and rainfall in Australia’s capital cities. Two low pressure systems in the Tasman Sea brought heavy rain, isolated flash flooding, and high seas to coastal New South Wales during July. The original source of this data can be found here. Only the south-east and south-west corners have a temper… Here is the average precipitation. Precipitation in Australia averaged 38.39 mm from 1901 until 2015, reaching an all time high of 226.45 mm in January of 1974 and a record low of 5.69 mm in September of 1957. The Southern Annular Mode (SAM) was positive for much of May and June. When El Niño occurs, on the other hand, the opposite happens, with strong winds blowing from East to West (away from Australia), resulting in cooler ocean temperatures on the Australian coast, and therefore less cloud formation and rain. Many of the storages in northern Australia rely on the regular wet season rainfall to replenish water levels following the drawdown on stored water over the dry season. Earth rainfall climatology Is the study of rainfall, a sub-field of meteorology.Formally, a wider study includes water falling as ice crystals, i.e. Rainfall was above average in each year from 2010 to 2012. Both mean maximum and mean minimum temperatures were cooler than average for the month over much of Australia. Last year was actually a wetter than usual rainfall year for South Australia, with an average rainfall of 248.9mm, which is 11% above the long term average for South Australia (the average again taken from 1961 – 1990). Averages are for Canberra Airport, which is 4 miles from Canberra. The worst drought to ever affect Australia occurred fairly recently, between the years 2003 – 2012 9. You’ll also notice that this is where the majority of the world’s major desert regions are located, including the Sahara Desert in Northern Africa, as well as the Atacama Desert in South America which has one of the lowest rainfalls in the world 5. This is the third mass bleaching event to affect the reef in five years. RAINFALL AND OTHER PRECIPITATION Annual Map 1.4 shows average annual rainfall over the Australian continent. Weather in January » Heavy rain fell over coastal New South Wales and much of Gippsland, resulting in localised flooding in several areas, including Newcastle, the Lower Hunter, and the South Coast District. A tropical low tracked west across the Kimberley in Western Australia during the first week of February, before developing into tropical cyclone Damien on the 6th while northwest of Broome. Sea surface temperatures across the Great Barrier Reef warmest on record for February and second-warmest on record for March. ... Download poster (PDF) These maps show the decile rank of rainfall for each calendar year. By the end of 2020, Wivenhoe Dam in southeast Queensland had dropped to its lowest level in 10 years. After more than a decade of warmer than average years, 2020 was Greater Adelaide's coolest year since 2003. December to February is summer; March to May is autumn; June to August is winter; and September to November is spring. Australia's seasons are at opposite times to those in the northern hemisphere. There was wind damage from Redcliffe to Kingston with gusts over 100 km/h observed around Moreton Bay. There has been a significant decline in April to October rainfall observed over southeast and southwest Australia including in higher rainfall parts of the Murray–Darling Basin in recent decades. In this region of subtropical high pressures, the air that forms around the equator rises higher than usual, before eventually lowering again. Above average rainfall and increased cloud cover over the southeast during this period suppressed maximum temperatures. Another main reason has been found to be of a man-made nature, however. Widespread snow was reported about the ranges in South Australia and some snow was reported in lower ranges in New South Wales, including at Orange, Oberon, the Barrington Tops, and the Brindabellas. The national temperature dataset commences in 1910. A scientific model used in the study predicts up to a 40% decrease in Australian rainfall over the next 40 years. The national total rainfall for 2020 was 4% above the 1961–1990 average at 483.4 mm (the 1961–1990 average is … On the 31st giant hail up to 14 cm in diameter was reported along a path through the southern outskirts of Brisbane from Amberley to the northern suburbs of Logan, giant hail up to 7 cm around Gatton and Gympie. These wet months in the beginning of 2017 were compensated for, with a drier than usual 6 months to follow, from April to September 2017. Even the driest month still has a lot of rainfall. Fifth-warmest year on record for the Northern Territory. From 2020 area-averaged rainfall values and mapped analyses use the new AGCD dataset. Reduced cloud cover, low humidity, and low soil moisture leads to a large diurnal temperature range (the difference between daily maximum and minimum temperatures), with both higher daytime temperatures and cooler nights. While January is normally the wettest month in Australia, in 2017 it experienced an estimated 63% more rain than the average rainfall in January between the years 1961 – 1990. Southern Australia is located at the equatorward edge of the midlatitude storm tracks, where annual rainfall is dominated by the passage of rain-bearing fronts and cut off lows, particularly during the cooler months of the year (Pook et al. The centre of South Australia is extremely dry, receiving as little as 100 – 200 ml per year. 2020 was Australia's fourth-warmest year on record. In climatology a baseline, or long-term average, is required against which to compare changes in climate over time. A large number of fires were active in southeast Queensland, eastern New South Wales, and northeastern Victoria and Gippsland at the start of the year. Annual mean minimum temperatures were also above average for much of the country, but close to average for eastern South Australia, northwestern Victoria, and southwestern New South Wales. With over 70 percent of its land classified as arid or semi-arid, Australia is considered the driest inhabited continent in the world. For example average yield nationally in 2002-3 was 0.91 t/ha, whereas in 2011-12 it was more than double that at 2.14 t/ha (Table 1). Widespread severe weather resulted over much of the west of Western Australia between the 24th and 26th, including strong and gusty winds, abnormally high tides and storm surges. A slow-moving low pressure system and trough near the southern Queensland coast brought widespread heavy rainfall, damaging winds, abnormally high tides and dangerous surf to the northern half of the New South Wales coast and southeast Queensland from 12 to 17 December. As expected, rainfall increased for the last 3 months of the year, October to December, with only December experiencing slightly less rain than the December average. As the Pacific Ocean began to lean towards La Niña in late winter conditions again turned wetter, with above average rainfall over large areas during August, September, and October. Australia has a wide variety of climates due to its large geographical size. La Niña tends to favour positive SAM and during 2020 the polar vortex over Antarctica was the strongest on record during spring, further strengthening the push towards positive SAM. The higher rainfall occurs along the southern coasts and the north-south-trending Mount Lofty and Flinders ranges. Conversely to the drying trend in the south, there has been an observed increase in rainfall across most of northern Australia since the 1970s. One of the most severe hailstorms recorded in the ACT occurred on 20 January. One of the main causes of drought in Australia is the lack of rainfall during certain periods, such as during an El Niño phase, as mentioned previously. With most of Australia's major climate drivers neutral during late summer and autumn, it is likely that a north–south temperature gradient in the Indian Ocean, with surface waters in the tropics much warmer than average, contributed to the higher number of northwest cloudbands that affected Australia. Here is the average precipitation. The driest year on record at Bray Park was 2019, with only 716.7mm of rain recorded (less than half the average of 1571mm). Heavy rainfall, giant hail, and damaging winds were observed with a number of storms. In this process, the moisture in the air is lost and it warms due to a phenomenon known as compressional heating. We then dug a little deeper into the Australian rainfall per state and month in 2017, plus the reasons why Australia is such a dry country, and more. The State Emergency Service received around 130 calls for help from the Geelong area, and 220 across the State. The speed and volume of runoff was likely to have increased due to the lack of vegetation. The driest section of Australia, with an average of less than 200 mm per year, extends over a large area from the west coast near Shark Bay, across the interior of Western Australia and northern South Australia into south-western Queensland and north-western New South Wales. The heat across northern Australia continued into spring, with September mean maximum temperatures warmest on record for much of the northwest of Australia, and further early-season records set in the northwest during the first half of the month. For Australia as a whole it was the second-warmest September on record. However, the distribution of the rain in 2020 was highly variable. For the northern tropics region every month during 2020 except December was amongst the five warmest on record, and each month from January to April was the second-warmest on record for their respective month. Annual mean minimum temperatures were amongst the ten warmest on record for Queensland, New South Wales, Western Australia, and the Northern Territory. Some properties were isolated for a number of weeks, and several roads were closed across the region, disrupting major transport routes. This was 244mm above average. Thirty five percent of the catchment was burnt by bushfires during 2019–20. It experienced one of the worst droughts in its history between 2003 and 2012, however, has since seen an increase in average rainfall. Suite 2 Level 10 70 Pitt Street Sydney NSW 2000 8:30am to 5:00pm Mon to Fri, This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google, http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/annual/aus/#tabs=Rainfall, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropic_of_Cancer, https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Australia-such-a-dry-continent-when-it-is-so-further-south-than-its-counterparts, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atacama_Desert, https://www.britannica.com/science/subtropical-high, http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/updates/articles/a008-el-nino-and-australia.shtml, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drought_in_Australia#Droughts_in_the_19th_century, http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/history-culture/2012/03/floods-10-of-the-deadliest-in-australian-history/, https://theconversation.com/climate-projections-show-australia-is-heading-for-a-much-warmer-future-36776, http://www.southwestnrm.org.au/sites/default/files/uploads/ihub/hughes-l-2003climate-change-and-australia-trends-projection.pdf, https://www.csiro.au/en/Research/OandA/Areas/Oceans-and-climate/Climate-change-information. 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