Category Archives: La Niña

BoM declares the El Niño is over and another La Niña could be on the way

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Seven months after an El Niño associated with hotter and drier weather got under way, conditions have returned to neutral

The Bureau of Meteorology has declared the El Niño weather event of 2023-24 to be over, with odds increasing that its cooler counterpart, the La Niña, will return by the coming spring.

Conditions in the central equatorial Pacific have now returned to neutral conditions, about seven months after the El Niño had got under way, the bureau said on Tuesday.

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Weather tracker: Nasa confirms world’s hottest July despite UK downpours

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Global temperature was warmest on record last month as Britain faced cloudy and wet conditions

At the start of this week Nasa announced that July 2023 had the highest global temperature recorded for that month since 1880. It was also the warmest month on record.

Readers in the UK may find this hard to believe, given the wet and generally miserable conditions in the country that month. Britain received 19% less sunshine and 170% more rain compared with the 1991-2020 average.

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Australia’s oversupply of wine tops 2.8bn bottles in wake of China trade dispute

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New report suggests glut will last years, even if Beijing drops tariffs early, while prices of Australian red wine grapes plummet by more than half

Australia has an oversupply equivalent to more than 2.8bn bottles of wine – a little more than 100 bottles per person – after the trade dispute with China slashed exports to the biggest consumer of Australian wines.

The excess wine is being stored in large steel vats in wineries across Australia, equating to 859 Olympic wine-filled swimming pools.

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Black summer bushfires may have caused rare ‘triple dip’ La Niña, study suggests

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Smoke aerosols from the fires interacted with clouds to cool the south-eastern Pacific, helping the wet weather pattern to form

Smoke from Australia’s 2019-20 black summer fires may have resulted in the rare “triple dip” La Niña that lasted from 2020 to 2022, research suggests.

Modelling from scientists at the US National Center for Atmospheric Research has found that smoke aerosols from the bushfires interacted with clouds to cool surface waters over the south-eastern subtropical Pacific Ocean.

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Sydney forecast to welcome its first day over 30 degrees in almost a year

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The city is just eight days off its longest streak of days below 30, the last being in February 2022

After 330 days, months of downpours and unusually cool weather, Sydney is finally staring down the barrel of a 30C day.

Wednesday is forecast to be the first day in nearly a year where temperatures are expected to top 30C at Observatory Hill, in the heart of the city, ending Sydney’s longest cool streak in over three decades.

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Central NSW braced for more flooding as Lachlan River set to hit 70-year-high level

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Forbes braced for second inundation in a fortnight as woman’s body found in Eugowra flood waters after ‘wall of water’ decimates NSW town

Communities in New South Wales are braced for more flooding with warnings of historic river rises and prolonged peaks in the state’s central west.

Across the state, the authorities have issued 117 warnings and 23 “evacuate now” orders, including for central western Forbes and Gooloogong, Gunnedah in the north-east and the southern border town of Moama.

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Global heating to drive stronger La Niña and El Niño events by 2030, researchers say

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New modelling suggests climate change-driven variability will be detectable decades earlier than previously expected

Stronger La Niña and El Niño events due to global heating will be detectable in the eastern Pacific Ocean by 2030, decades earlier than previously expected, new modelling suggests.

Researchers have analysed 70 years of reliable sea surface temperature records in the Pacific Ocean to model changes in the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (Enso) under current projections of global heating.

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Met Office predicts severe flooding across England in February

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Floods would most likely be the result of La Niña – a powerful weather pattern influenced by cooler temperatures in the Pacific

Severe flooding caused by La Niña is predicted for February despite England remaining in drought, the Met Office has said.

Two-thirds of people who are at risk of flooding do not realise they are, the government said on Monday, as it embarked on a major awareness campaign. This is significant, as the average cost to a flooded household is £30,000.

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Floods and warm weather perfect storm for Japanese encephalitis outbreak in Australia, researchers warn

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Modellers say those within 4km of an infected piggery potentially vulnerable, meaning 740,546 people at risk of mosquito-borne virus

Warming temperatures combined with flood waters could leave almost 750,000 Australians vulnerable to Japanese encephalitis – a disease that until last year was confined to Asia and far-northern Australia.

The mosquito-borne disease was first detected on the Australian mainland in 1998, but its range expanded dramatically earlier this year. Cases were reported in dozens of southern piggeries (pigs are one of the main carriers of the virus) and there were also 31 confirmed cases in humans and six deaths.

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Coogee beach among NSW swimming spots with ‘poor’ water quality amid La Niña deluge

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Twice the number of sites have been exposed to concerning levels of pollution and sewage since 2019, government report finds

One in five swimming spots in New South Wales have been rated as having “poor” or “very poor” pollution levels, including Sydney’s popular Coogee beach, after the state experienced its wettest summer in a decade.

Twice the number of beaches, lakes and lagoons have been exposed to concerning levels of pollution and sewage since 2019, according to the annual state of the beaches report released by the NSW Department of Planning and Environment.

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Covid quarantine centre to reopen for flood evacuees – as it happened

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Daniel Andrews says 500 homes have been flooded and another 500 have been isolated. This blog is now closed

An estimated 500 homes are flooded in Victoria with number expected to grow: Daniel Andrews

Victoria’s premier, Daniel Andrews, has been on ABC radio Melbourne this morning, providing listeners with an update on the floods.

Obviously this has been a very, very significant flood event and it’s far from over. There’s a little bit more rainfall but as that weather event passes through, the real challenge is waters continuing to rise and more and more houses being inundated, more and more communities being closed off, becoming isolated, then of course we move to clean up and all of those issues.

We think there’s about 500 homes that are flooded, we think there are another 500 that have been isolated across the state. But I would just say they’re very early estimates and the aerial intelligence gathering choppers are up in the air now ... they’ll be doing all their reports back to the state control centre. So I’d say those numbers are absolutely certain to grow. And indeed, we’re still asking people to leave in some areas. There have been important, important evacuation notices have been issued in a number of communities. So those numbers will go up. That’s why we’ve got nine important relief centres opening and 50 sandbag collection points. There’s an enormous amount of work going on.

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Venezuela floods kill 25 after month’s worth of rain falls in eight hours

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At least 52 missing as military and rescue personnel searched for survivors

At least 25 people died and 52 were missing after five small rivers in central Venezuela flooded due to heavy rains, the government said.

The downpour on Saturday night swept large tree trunks and debris from surrounding mountains into the town of Tejerias, 67km south-west of the capital, Caracas, damaging businesses and farmland, according to the vice-president, Delcy Rodríguez.

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NSW weather: rain subsides but heavy falls expected midweek

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Dozens of rivers still flooding and evacuation orders in place across state as reprieve from rain set to be short-lived

Rain has eased over much of New South Wales but dozens of rivers are still flooding and evacuation orders are in place as authorities forecast another rain system to arrive midweek.

People across the state were forced to flee their homes over the weekend amid rising flood waters and thousands of others are poised to leave if ordered as dams spill and river peaks move downstream.

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Extinction Rebellion protesters glue hands to prized Picasso – as it happened

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Dutton on his answer to filling the gap should stage-three tax cuts go through

Dutton:

If you look at even post lockdowns on a month by month basis, you can see months where we’ve gone back into surplus, so the settings we have in government, our instinct as Liberals, as a Coalition when it comes to budget management are vindicated.

When you look at where we are with a 50-year low unemployment, when you look at the strength of the underlying indicators here in Australia, that is a very significant contrast to where the UK or US budget is, and this government inherited a very strong position after nine years of Coalition management.

David, we went to the last election with a promise and I’m not in the business of breaking promises. The prime minister can contemplate it. He looked the Australian public in the eye and it seems he wasn’t so genuine and that he was prepared to make that statement.

I want to see the prime minister honour his commitment and not lie to the Australian people.

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Fresh rain warnings as BoM says flooding in NSW ‘to continue for months’

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With many catchments soaked and more rain on the way, authorities say waterways are ‘sensitive to any future rainfall’

New South Wales is bracing for another week of thunderstorms, gusty winds and renewed flooding, with authorities warning flooding in some areas is expected to continue for several months.

The wet weather was expected to return to south-western parts of the state from Monday afternoon, deepening throughout Tuesday and Wednesday as the trough moved across to the coast.

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Queensland and NSW brace for flash flooding as more than 20cm of rain falls in three hours

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Weather experts predict already soaked river catchments will remain flooded over coming months

Communities on the Queensland-New South Wales border are on high alert for flash flooding after more than 20cm of rain fell in three hours in some areas.

An intense weather system moved east overnight across the Gold Coast and the already soaked NSW’s northern rivers, prompting emergency text messages to be sent to some residents.

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Eastern Australia faces wet weather and flooding with 70% chance of third consecutive La Niña

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Bureau of Meteorology forecasts heavy rain in spring driven by negative Indian Ocean Dipole and warm waters in the north

Australia could be lashed with more rain and possible floods for the next three months with La Niña conditions predicted to return for a rare third consecutive year.

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology raised the El Niño-Southern Oscillation La Niña outlook from “watch” to “alert” on Tuesday afternoon.

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La Niña has ended but there’s a 50-50 chance another will form by the Australian summer

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Bureau of Meteorology says winter will be wetter than average and a rare three-in-a-row La Niña is still on the cards

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology has announced an end to the 2021-22 La Niña in the tropical Pacific – but it could return with the BoM changing its status to “watch”.

La Niña, which involves warming ocean temperatures in the western Pacific, typically delivers increased rainfall across much of Australia along with cooler daytime temperatures south of the tropics and warmer night-time temperatures in the north.

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Chilly weather grips South America as southern Europe faces exceptional heat

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Analysis: The presence of cooler water can have wider-ranging impacts on global weather patterns

It’s not the first time recently that chilly conditions have gripped parts of southern South America in the lead-up to the southern hemisphere winter. Over the past couple of days, an area of low pressure has positioned itself just south-east of the continent and allowed cold air to filter northwards into southern Chile and Argentina. This process will continue over the coming days with temperatures 5-10 degrees below normal in Argentina from Thursday.

In fact, the western side of South America, including farther north into Peru, has experienced almost perpetually cool conditions of late linked to an ongoing La Niña event in the Pacific Ocean. During these events, which usually occur every few years, sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the south-eastern Pacific cool significantly as colder waters from the deep upwell to the surface. Current observations suggest SSTs just off the coast of Peru are between 1.5 and 3.5C colder than normal and they have been cooler than normal since last autumn. The presence of cooler water has an often moderating impact on temperatures in South America but can have wider-ranging impacts on global weather patterns too.

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In Australia’s wet weather ‘tis the season for spiders, mozzies, mice and mould

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La Niña brings more than just rain to eastern states, as some unwanted visitors begin venturing into people’s homes

A surge in mosquitoes, spiders, termites, rodents – and mould – has hit eastern Australia, in what appears to be a fitting end to 2021.

The wet weather caused by the latest La Niña event has helped flush out creatures that may typically burrow or live underground into the open and inside people’s homes.

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