Victoria’s rain hope as El Niño fizzles

UPDATE: VICTORIA will receive its first burst of summer heat on the weekend.

Rain between Logan and Tarnagulla caused flooding in paddocks Picture: ANDY ROGERS

UPDATE: VICTORIA will receive its first burst of summer heat on the weekend.

Temperatures are expected to reach about 40C in Mildura, Walpeup and Hopetoun on Sunday and Monday.

Horsham is expecting 37 degrees on Sunday and Monday, as are Nhill and Kyabram.

The Bureau of Meteorology said parts of central Victoria suffered one of their driest springs on record.

The bureau said spring this year was the warmest ever recorded in Victoria and the sixth driest in 106 years.

Bendigo, Castlemaine and Redesdale were among the centres to set new records for average maximum daily temperatures.

The El Nino drying weather pattern that triggered the drought will soon be over, according to the bureau.

“All the signs are the El Niño will peak either this month or very early next year,” bureau climatologist Jonathan Pollock said.

“The data suggests we are now nearing the peak of the event, and will weaken in the first quarter of 2016.”

He said some of the climate data could “still bounce around a bit” but the trends were clear.

“El Niño has less impact during summer, and other climate factors are now coming into play, so the rainfall outlook isn’t looking as dry.”

But there is no guarantee it will rain straight away.

The drying impact of the El Niño, which dominated southeast Australia’s weather this year, was aided by a positive Indian Ocean Dipole and a record warming of sea surface temperatures, which has also disappeared.

Mr Pollock said the bureau was not yet offering “any guidance” for when the rain would return.

Records show Victoria can expect an average year in 2016, rather than a wet one.

Victorian Farmers Federation vice-president David ­Jochinke of Murra Warra, north of Horsham, said “everyone will rejoice” over the end of the El Niño.

“This event has been quite devastating right across the state,” Mr Jochinke said.

“The only thing that is going to solve the issues we have now is rain and plenty of it.”

Mr Jochinke said farmers needed several “good, average seasons” to catch up.

“If the weather could dish out some average years for a change I think everyone would be happy,” he said.

Of the 26 occurrences of El Niño the bureau has previously recorded, 10 went straight into La Nina (wet years), 13 were neutral and three went back into El Nino.