{"id":895096,"date":"2026-06-26T22:29:24","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T22:29:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/895096\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T22:29:24","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T22:29:24","slug":"winter-weather-and-el-nino-on-backburner-as-tropical-humidity-arrives-to-soak-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/895096\/","title":{"rendered":"Winter weather and El Ni\u00f1o on backburner as tropical humidity arrives to soak Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"

For an El Ni\u00f1o year, 2026 is so far the wettest on record for Australia, and an influx of tropical moisture is about to deliver another round of widespread rain.<\/p>\n

The current spell of not very El Ni\u00f1o-like weather is partly due to a competing climate driver from the south which is preventing cool and dry Southern Ocean air from reaching our shores.<\/p>\n

This is not only boosting rainfall in many areas but has also helped to produce the warmest June on record for parts of Australia’s east.<\/p>\n

Loading…Cold fronts and snow contract away from Australia<\/p>\n

Four weeks into winter and Australia’s alpine slopes are still green while seven-day forecasts across the nation, apart from south-west WA, show another prolonged run of unseasonably warm weather.<\/p>\n

Sydney is predicted to hit 23 degrees Celsius on Thursday (6C above the July average), and Brisbane 25C (4C above average), while a typically frosty Canberra will see overnight minimums as high as 7C (7C above normal).<\/p>\n

For our ski resorts, temperatures during the coming days will remain well-above freezing, ensuring no natural snow cover at the start of July for the first time since 2015.<\/p>\n

But unlike 11 years ago, the anxiety heading into the school holidays is being compounded by the lack of cold nights and opportunities for snowmaking.<\/p>\n

\"ski<\/p>\n

Only days from July and our ski slopes remain mostly bare, apart from a few patches of man-made snow. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

The only previous years in the Snowy Hydro snow dataset, started in 1954, which had no snow by July was 1967 and 1957.<\/p>\n

For our capitals, the delay in cold weather has shattered some June records.<\/p>\n

Sydney’s mean temperature this month \u2014 average of all minimums and maximums \u2014 is sitting on 16.3C, more than 3C above the long-term average and easily the warmest start to winter on record.<\/p>\n

Melbourne is also running at about 3C above normal and is on track for its warmest June since 1957, while Hobart’s June is the mildest since at least 2002.<\/p>\n

So what happened to winter?<\/p>\n

The chief cause of the unseasonable heat is a shift in Southern Hemisphere winds.<\/p>\n

In a normal winter pattern, cold fronts embedded in westerly winds would bring cold weather to Australia, however westerlies and fronts this June have retreated south.<\/p>\n

This pattern is called a positive phase of the Southern Annular Mode (SAM).<\/p>\n

A positive SAM is a well-known climate driver, like El Ni\u00f1o or the Indian Ocean Dipole, and its current index soared to +4.41 this week \u2014 the highest value since May 2023.<\/p>\n

While the cause of this extreme phase of SAM is complex, and at least partly due to natural variability, there is a clear link between climate change and a long-term trend favouring more positive values.<\/p>\n

Another round of humid tropical air and rain<\/p>\n

Another impact of the positive SAM is the lingering warmer air is also more humid, setting up the right environment for rain events.<\/p>\n

This has helped to neutralise the reduction in cloud and rain you typically see during El Ni\u00f1o, although El Ni\u00f1o’s peak drying influence often does not arrive until late winter.<\/p>\n

There is another drenching on the way. During the coming week, two separate streams of tropical moisture will result in twin rainbands from southern Queensland to Tasmania.<\/p>\n

\"a<\/p>\n

While it’s been a warm start to winter, cloud and rain have been frequent this June across much of Australia. (ABC News: Tom Saunders)<\/p>\n

The first band is already bringing light rain to WA, but will intensify as it tracks east and delivers widespread falls of 5 to 40 millimetres across the Murray Basin through Monday and Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The second band should then develop across south-east states on Wednesday lifting weekly totals to the range of 25 to 50mm across western and northern Tasmania, most of Victoria, inland New South Wales and south-west Queensland.<\/p>\n

\"a<\/p>\n

Widespread falls of 25 to 50mm are ahead for the Murray-Darling Basin, with pockets of 100mm possible. (ABC News)<\/p>\n

For outback areas, 50mm would represent about two months’ worth of rain, and isolated pockets of 100mm cannot be ruled out over north-east Victoria, and along the NSW western slopes and ranges.<\/p>\n

This next major rain event follows what has already been a wet year for much of Australia’s inland.<\/p>\n

The national average rain for the first six months of 2026 is now just below 400mm, about 100mm above the long-term mean.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Compared to 28 previous El Ni\u00f1o years since 1900, it is the wettest start to a year on record.<\/p>\n

However, since El Ni\u00f1o mainly impacts winter and spring rainfall, a January to June rain record does not imply this El Ni\u00f1o is somehow different.<\/p>\n

But what does have consequence is even if widespread drought does arrive during the second half of 2026, the wet start to 2026 should alleviate its severity.<\/p>\n

\"a<\/p>\n

2026 has been exceptionally wet across much of inland Australia. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

Winter on the horizon and snow for the holidays<\/p>\n

There are also growing signs the SAM index will drop this week.<\/p>\n

This will pave the way for a pair of powerful cold fronts to arrive from Thursday, bringing much colder weather to central and eastern Australia by next weekend.<\/p>\n

Depending on their eventual strength, there is also the potential for a heavy dump of snow across the Alps, which would bring a sigh of relief to the thousands already booked in for a ski trip during school holidays.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For an El Ni\u00f1o year, 2026 is so far the wettest on record for Australia, and an influx…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":895097,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[4740,285,97754,362727,55920,50,362721,362726,362724,362725,71178,362723,362722,7160,187639],"class_list":["post-895096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-australia","tag-climate-change","tag-el-nino","tag-indian-ocean-diapole","tag-murray-basin","tag-news","tag-outhern-ocean","tag-rain-band","tag-rainbands","tag-ski-trips","tag-snow","tag-southern-annular-mode","tag-southern-hemisphere-winds","tag-weather-forecast","tag-weather-in-australia"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116818777326465348","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=895096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/895097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=895096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=895096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=895096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}