Adelaide records its highest rainfall to start the year in more than three decades as wet June defies climate outlook
More than 320mm have already fallen across Adelaide this year, the highest total in more than three decades – and there’s more on the way.
SA News
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Adelaide has had its wettest start to the year since 1987, with recent winter downpours even surprising forecasters.
The West Tce station had recorded 323.8mm to 9am Monday, making it the city’s highest rainfall to June 26 in more than 35 years with forecasts for more rain for the rest of the week.
It comes after a sustained period of showers throughout June, which included major downpours across the city late last week.
The recent downpours have been so severe there have been several warnings for dams at risk of failure.
The wet start to winter has even surprised Bureau of Meteorology senior climatologist Jonathon Pollock who said the climate outlook for June was for below-average rainfall in South Australia.
“What we’re seeing so far in June looks very different than what we were expecting in the outlook,” he said.
“So we’ve had a couple of notable systems move across and drawn a lot of moisture in parts it typically wouldn’t.”
The climate outlook moving further into winter is more neutral and rainfall is expected to be closer to the average or below.
Mr Pollock said there was still about a 70 per cent chance that the country would move into an El Nino pattern this year.
“We’ve started to see some signs of El Nino development in the oceans, but we haven’t seen a strong reaction in the atmosphere yet,” he said.
“It’s a sort of a coupled ocean, atmosphere phenomenon that sort of gets into a feedback loop and we’re still waiting to sort of see that response from the atmosphere.”
Meanwhile, new research has revealed 68 per cent of South Australians do not have a plan for emergencies or wild weather.
Research conducted by NRMA Insurance revealed more than 980,000 South Australian’s didn’t plan for the wild weather.
Australian Red Cross head of emergency services Andrew Coghlan said it was important Australians prepared in advance for any type of emergency.
“When they happen, there’s lots of decisions to make,” he said.
“Last year alone, Australian Red Cross supported more than 130,000 people during emergencies such as bushfires, floods and severe storms.”
The weather for Adelaide for the rest of the week is 15C and showers, with rain clearing on Saturday.
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