As if to confirm a totally different weather pattern to that of the past two years, rain-bearing troughs of low pressure continue to cross the south-east of the country every couple of weeks, each bringing a brief period of unsettled weather.
As was forecast some months ago, this set up is expected to result in at least average rainfall in most of NSW and Queensland in the remaining months of 2020.
There are optimistic signs over the Pacific to the east of the Australian continent and also, but not quite as strongly, to the west over the Indian Ocean.
The Pacific Ocean continues to show encouraging signs of a developing La Nina and all indications are for this trend to persist for most of the remaining part of the year.
Average to above average rainfall is favoured for NSW during this period with a potential for an increase in storm activity in spring and/or earlier start to the storm season.
The situation in the Indian Ocean is not as clear cut.
In recent weeks the sea surface temperatures have cooled a little through the western Indian Ocean.
As this is only a recent development, we need to see if this is an anomaly or a different trend emerging.
However, models have begun to forecast a slightly more negative Indian Ocean Dipole which suggests this could be a developing pattern.
If this occurs, it adds confidence to above average spring rainfall in NSW from this source as well.
It is also worth noting that SSTs around much of continental Australia continue to be a little up on normal.
(The western Great Australian Bight is the only exception to this at the moment.)
If this persists into spring and summer, then there is a good chance that - once again - the seasons will be warmer than the long term average although it is very unlikely that temperatures will be anywhere near the record warmth of 2019.
In the Southern Ocean, the Southern Annular Mode continues to fluctuate.
Currently it is at least temporarily positive and in the winter months, a positive SAM can reduce rainfall potential in south-east SA, Victoria, Tasmania and southern inland NSW but it can have the reverse effect further north and east in NSW and Queensland.
So all these features still point to a reasonable chance that there will be above average rainfalls for the rest of 2020, helped in places by the occasional significant events but rainfalls will still show some variability.
The chances of above average rainfall in Victoria and southern inland NSW will decrease a little after August and increase further north.
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