La Nina will be over in February.
The simple sentence, delivered by The Bureau of Meteorology's senior meteorologist Jonathan How, is likely to leave many with just one question.
What will the summer bring?
Those rural and regional towns who have copped nothing short of a battering in what was the wettest October on record for one state, will be praying we've seen the last of the floods.
With only one day left in October, Mr How said records have been smashed, rivers continue to be full of water and there's no end of rainfall in sight - with more predicted as soon as this week.
Mr How said ongoing flooding is likely to continue across Victoria, Tasmania and New South Wales.
"[Flooding] is likely to last for a long time as the rivers take a long time to flow inland," he said.
"Any rainfall will just keep topping up those rivers into summer until we get a decent, prolonged dry period which is looking more and more likely [to be when] heading into late summer."
Records
For New South Wales, October 2022 was the wettest on record, with some large areas of the state seeing more than 200mm.
In Cathcart, Mount Darragh (inland from Bega), an incredible 430mm has fallen.
The award for the region with the highest rainfall in October goes to Gray on Tasmania's east coast, which received 540mm for the month.
Of the top ten rainfall totals for the month, Tasmanian towns/regions hold four spots - including the two top (Gray, and Mount Barrow - 506.2mm).
Victoria, which was inundated with floodwaters, saw vast areas of the state's north east and central regions record between 200m and 400m, with Mount Buller taking the top recording of 460mm - a record for the usually-snowy resort village town.
Mr How said with so much rain, many records were broken - too many to list.
"You're looking at broad areas all the way from eastern South Australian into northern and central Victoria and western New South Wales," he said.
"It's large parts of those three states with record total rainfall, but pretty much anywhere east of Esperance and north of that has seen above average rainfall for the whole country."
Mr How said prominent towns or regions which have set records include Bendigo, Swan Hill, Mildura, Mount Buller, Ivanhoe, Hay, Berry and Renmark.
Looking forward
"The Bureau's climate update came out last week and does confirm that we still are in a La Nina event," Mr How said.
"We are expecting this La Nina is going to persist through November, which does mean above average rainfall and of course for large parts of the north we are heading into the proper wet season.
"We are likely to be seeing above-average rainfall for large parts of the east and north."
Mr How said in better news, some climate models are indicating the La Nina will start to weaken in December and January.
"Right now the Bureau is saying that from January the majority of climate models are indicating a weakening La Nina, and by February all of them are saying La Nina should be over," he said.
"So we are still looking at the next month or so of above-average rainfall and cooler conditions.
"But then from there we are heading back into neutral territory - neither La Nina or El Nino into early 2023."
Summer predictions
Mr How said it was important to remember flooding events can happen without a La Nina.
"We can still get flooding - so that's still very much a possibility from February but just [potentially] less likely," he said.
While most focus has been on rainfall for October, some areas of the country in northern Queensland, the Northern Territory and outback Western Australia have seen heatwave conditions which Mr How said will continue.
"For northern Australia we're heading into monsoon season and cyclone season, we are still expecting a more active wet season across the north, including slightly more tropical cyclones," he said.
Kelly Butterworth
Kelly is the Agricultural Digital Editor for ACM Agri, covering Queensland Country Life, The Land, Farmonline, Stock Journal, Stock & Land, Farm Weekly and the North Queensland Register.
Kelly is the Agricultural Digital Editor for ACM Agri, covering Queensland Country Life, The Land, Farmonline, Stock Journal, Stock & Land, Farm Weekly and the North Queensland Register.
