Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane weather: Warning issued

An overwhelmingly dry and cloud-free rain radar for August could signal months of dry weather as Australia approaches its hottest summer after three straight years of La Niña.

This is because warnings of a high probability of wildfires have been issued this week, with indications of a positive Indian Ocean dipole – another weather event causing a hot and dry summer – to emerge.

A weather map from Sky News The Rain Forecast weather for the next eight days revealed a largely bone dry forecast, with just 50mm of precipitation predicted for small zones in Far North Queensland, the NSW south coast and the coastal area across the NSW. and the Queensland border.

Sky News meteorologist Rob Sharpe shared his forecast for the weekend, saying showers were only forecast for Tasmania, with a low chance of the condensation clouds sweeping south-east South Australia and southern Victoria.

“Only in the Southeast will it be chilly this weekend,” he said.

Overall, “significantly drier than normal” weather was forecast for most of the country for the remainder of August, September and the rest of 2023.

Forecasts also showed that there was a strong chance for most of Australia to record maximum temperatures over the next three months that exceeded normal averages.

There was a good chance that spring temperatures would rise above average maxima. Photo: Sky News

“As we have this positive Indian Dipole weather event in our west, which is currently preparing, it is already affecting our weather patterns and leading to the dominance of those high pressure systems,” Mr Sharpe said.

“So we’ll continue to see drier-than-normal weather, and even more so, hotter-than-usual weather gradually starting to come in.”

An overwhelmingly dry August could signal months of reduced rainfall and higher temperatures as Australia heads into its most severe bushfire season since the 2019-20 Black Summer fires.

Earlier this week, the Australasian Fire Authorities Council (AFAC) released their Spring 2023 Season Bushfire Outlook, which noted an increased risk of significant bushfires for large parts of central and northern NSW.

In Queensland, areas around the interior of the Capricornia, Wide Bay-Burnett and the south east coast forecast areas, and in widespread parts of the Southern Downsand Granite Belt have also been marked as high fire risk.

Precipitation deciles during 2019 (left) and 2022 (right), showing the contrast between positive and negative IOP years. Photo: WeerZone

A positive dipole in the Indian Ocean will also signal a warmer and drier spring and summer.

The contrasting temperatures between the western tropical Indian Ocean, near the Horn of Africa, and the eastern Indian Ocean, near Indonesia, are at their highest levels since 2019 – the last time a positive IOP was recorded.

While it is still a long time before a positive Indian Ocean dipole is officially declared, the Bureau of Meteorology suggests the weather event will be announced in September.

While the federal agency has yet to officially declare El Nino, an Aug. 15 weather update says it likely remains.

The Bureau’s long-term forecast suggests a spring with below-average rainfall and higher-than-average maximum temperatures.

Australia is heading into its most severe bushfire season since the Black Summer fires in 2019-2020.