Australia Weather News

There are multiple indications the record drought across southern Australia is finally loosening its grip.

Firstly, a much-anticipated rainband is engulfing most of the country and will stretch nearly 3,000 kilometres this weekend from tropical Queensland to Tasmania, falling as heavy snow across the Alps.

Essential, though, for drought recovery is follow-up falls, and a second bout of rain is predicted from Sunday to Thursday, ensuring this month becomes the wettest for southern Australia since June 2023.

Hope of a more permanent drought relief is also backed by the latest long-range outlooks, which now firmly favour wetter conditions this spring.

Most widespread rain in years

The current rain event commenced through Wednesday and Thursday as a powerful cold front surged well north across Western Australia to the Pilbara, drenching parts of Perth with more than 50 millimetres and spawning a destructive tornado.

The extreme northward penetration is the key to this system — it allowed the front to not only drag in tropical moisture, which is a prerequisite for inland rain, but also cause the formation of a low-pressure system near the WA south coast.

The low then traversed the South Australian coast on Friday, spreading the rainband across the interior and into south-east states. Clare in the Mid North welcomed more than 25mm — already the town's heaviest rain since late 2023.

By sunset, the parched Mallee had picked up 10mm, hardly a deluge, but for Mildura, already the heaviest fall so far in 2025.

The front has now shifted the band well into Tasmania, Queensland and New South Wales. However, because a low is trailing near the southern coast, showers will continue across SA and Victoria for at least another 48 hours.

By late Monday, the southern Murray Basin and most farming regions of SA are likely to receive between 15 and 30mm of rain, including what has already fallen in the past 24 hours.

The deep low is also generating strong winds and heavy alpine snow, which will not completely clear until later on Monday, when the low retreats into the Southern Ocean.

For the Alps, around 50 centimetres of fresh snow should accumulate on the higher slopes during the next three days, continuing a much-improved ski season relative to the past two years.

Follow-up rain only days away

While the current rain event is crucial, a rebound from drought requires more than just an aberration — and thankfully, modelling is promising follow-up falls during the coming week.

Yet another vigorous front, the third in less than a week, will arrive on the WA west coast on Sunday, and like its predecessor, will lead to the formation of a low near the state's south coast.

However, this next system will only draw in a small plume of tropical moisture and therefore, for most areas, rainfall intensity will be limited.

Nonetheless, the low will still bring widespread showers, starting in WA on Sunday, reaching western SA on Monday, then spreading throughout south-east Australia from Tuesday to Thursday.

This will boost the weekly totals to around 25 to 50mm across most of southern Australia — comfortably the most widespread week of rain in two years.

For the Alps, the arrival of another low means more snow, and an injection of polar air could lower the snow level to around 1,000 metres along the Great Dividing Range.

A swing to wetter seasons

Full recovery from the worst drought on record will require sustained wet months, a scenario becoming more likely according to the latest extended outlooks issued this week.

The Bureau of Meteorology's (BOM) long-range model called ACCESS–S now shows up to an 80 per cent chance of above-median falls through parts of eastern Australia from August to October.

Using one model in isolation can be problematic in forecasting. However, an ensemble of nine different global models, shown below, supports the wet outlook.

The model average indicates a 70 to 90 per cent chance of above-median rain across the whole of central and eastern Australia.

But why are models consistently tipping the following months will be wet?

One clue is ocean temperatures across the tropical Indian and Pacific oceans.

Long-range forecasts are hinting at both a weak La Niña and a weak negative Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) signal — both drivers of wet conditions in Australia.

However, without a clear consensus and no observable trend so far indicating their development, basing forecasts on either La Niña or a negative IOD would be premature.

So, can we trust the outlook?

Seasonal rain forecasts without active climate drivers should be viewed with caution, but when analysed in conjunction with the current wet weather, it is becoming increasingly likely the worst of the drought, at least from a meteorological perspective, is coming to an end.