The Record Rains for Northern Australia in March

Highlight: The unexpected heavy rains of Q1/2024 across Northern Australia.

Fig. 1-3: Australia March and JAN/FEB/MAR 2024 rainfall anomaly observations and the Q1/2024 upper air pattern across Australia.

Discussion: The Australia Bureau of Meteorology stated that record rainfall was observed across Northern Australia during March 2024 (Fig. 1). The extreme rainfall pattern extends into Western Australia. Q1/2024 reflects a similar anomaly particularly the wet extreme across northern areas (Fig. 2). In the Coastal Southeast, including key crop areas, dryness has strengthened recently. The culprit to the wet extreme during Q1/2024 is semi-permanent low pressure over Northwest Australia possibly related to the weakening +IOD pattern of late last year (Fig. 3). Short-term heavy rains are forecast for the recent dry soil trend zone in the Coastal Southeast (Fig. 4). After that, the medium-range forecast looks drier with widespread early season cooler than normal temperatures (Fig. 5).

Fig. 4-5: The heavy rain forecast for the remainder of this week by GFS in Eastern Australia and the ECM ENS (cool) 15-day forecast across most of Australia.