Whatever happened to El Niño?

This summer was supposed to be dry and hot, and a scientist from UNSW Sydney explains why the current warm and wet El Niño cycle hasn’t behaved quite as we expected it to.

Goodbye rain, hello sunshine

A warming El Niño event may develop in the coming months after three consecutive years of an unusually stubborn and protracted La Niña.

Three times loses its charm

Whatever the weather, people are going to complain about it, and the prospect of another damp summer has been met with dismay by the same people who lamented years of drought and bushfires.

The long La Niña

La Niña has brought floods to Queensland and New South Wales but droughts to Africa and South America and seems set to continue for several months yet.

Welcome La Niña

With La Niña bringing moist air from the Pacific, there is an increased risk of flooding along the north, east and southeast regions of Australia.

Like the weather

A brace of Flinders University studies offer fresh insight into our island continent’s climate variability and the effects of floods and drought on water supplies, agriculture, the environment and the nation’s future.

Why do ‘once a century’ events happen so often?

Our land of ‘droughts and flooding rains’ seems to suffer ‘once a century’ weather events with increasing regularity. Is this press hyperbole or an accurate picture?

Understanding our crazy weather

What do the wild weather extremes of recent weeks, not least in Sydney and Melbourne, tell us about our changing climate?

Bushfires may be only the beginning

Public attention on the disastrous bushfire crisis in Australia will continue for weeks to come, but as we direct resources to coping and recovery, additional weather and climate challenges may be looming.

Understanding Melbourne’s crazily predictable weather

Melbourne’s weather is renowned for its variability, but it is still predictable, explained partly by its position on a large hot continent close to the cold Southern Ocean.

The stubborn high-pressure system behind this record heatwave

If you think the weather this month has been like Groundhog Day (albeit much hotter), you’d probably be right! Much like a stuck record, weather systems seem to have stalled over most of the country, so just what is going on?