WARMER than average winter nights are forecast for most of Queensland as a La Nina weather system slowly weakens, according to the Bureau of Meteorology’s Winter 2022 Climate Outlook.
The report also predicts that unusually wet conditions for inland parts of Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia and the Northern Territory are likely to be in the top 20 per cent of wettest winters.
There is an above 80 per cent chance of unusually high winter temperatures in coastal, south-western and northern parts of Western Australia, coastal northern areas of the Northern Territory and Queensland, south-eastern New South Wales, southern and eastern Victoria, and all of Tasmania.
Warmer than average nights are likely almost everywhere – with at least an 80% chance of higher minimum temperatures for most of Australia.
A large section of central Australia has an increased chance of unusually low winter daytime temperatures, in the coolest 20 per cent of past winters. This extends from Western Australia’s eastern area through central Australia into the eastern states.
The winter outlooks reflect several climate influences, including a developing negative Indian Ocean Dipole, a slowly declining La Niña in the Pacific Ocean and warmer than average waters around northern Australia.
