Dry conditions during La Niña or wet conditions during El Niño are rare across eastern Australia as a whole.
La Niña and El Niño are well-known terms in Australia these days. Linked to them are certain expectations: we expect wet conditions in La Niña and dry conditions in El Niño.
These expectations have certainly been met over the past couple of years, when regions across Australia experienced record-breaking rains and severe floods during consecutive La Niña events.
It might surprise you to learn, however, that not all La Niñas have been wet, nor El Niños dry. Step back to spring 2020, for example, and Australia was relatively dry and warm, despite a La Niña.
Officials have declared the recent La Niña as over, and now we’re on an El Niño watch. You might therefore be wondering: how often can we expect it to be dry in Australia during El Niño? Our new research sought to answer this question, and the converse for La Niña.
We found La Niña and El Niño are good indicators of wet and dry conditions in eastern Australia as a whole. But at some locations, including Sydney, they do little to shift the normal odds of wet and dry conditions.
We focused on the spring season because spring rainfall has the strongest historical relationship with La Niña/El Niño. We used a simple approach known as “tercile analysis.”
2023-03-23 07:00:04
Source from phys.org