Australian Weather

01 Apr 2025, 9:20AM UTC

With nationwide average temperatures that were 2.41°C above the long-term average, Australia has registered its hottest March since national records were first kept in 1910. It was also Australia’s fourth-wettest March on record, with rainfall that was 47% above the long-term average. Wet weather and above-average temperatures generally don’t go together for the obvious reason that cloudy weather restricts the amount of warming sunlight, therefore it’s likely that the underlying influence of climate change was a factor contributing to Australia's very warm March. Image: Mean temperature anomalies for Australia from 1910 to 2025. The anomalies are compared to the average of the 30-year baseline period from 1961-1990. Source: BoM. Temperature statistics for March 2025 As mentioned, Australia as a whole was 2.41°C above the long-term average, the hottest March on record.  Each individual state and territory was warmer than normal. Three states had their hottest March on record – SA, NSW and WA.  South Australia registered the biggest anomaly of any state or territory, with statewide temperatures that were 3.26°C above the long-term average. Tasmania registered the smallest temperature anomaly, yet it was still the state's 10th-warmest March on record, with temperatures 1.06°C warmer than the long-term average.  Rainfall summary for March 2025 As the blue areas on the chart below indicate, virtually the whole of Queensland and large parts of northern NSW saw rainfall that was very much above average, or even the highest on record, in March 2025.  Image: Rainfall deciles for March 2025, with the darkest blue representing the highest March rainfall on record. Source: BoM. Overall it was Queensland's 3rd-wettest March on record. The first notable rainfall reading came on March 9, when Brisbane had its wettest day in half a century with 275.2mm recorded due to ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred.  In the middle third of the month, the wettest part of the country was North Queensland, with Townsville recording its heaviest daily rainfall in 27 years when 301.4mm drenched the city in the 24-hours to 9am on March 19. Around the same time of the month, a weather station on the Cardwell Range, about halfway between Cairns and Townsville, recorded a 7-day rainfall total of 1090.8 mm. In the last full week of the month, 24-hour totals of more than 200mm were recorded at weather stations in far western Qld, as a prolonged influx of tropical moisture soaked outback and central Qld and parts of northern NSW. Despite the relentless rainfall in Qld and parts of NSW, March rainfall totals were below average for most of Tasmania, parts of the mainland's south and west, and parts of Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory. READ MORE: Normally dry creek now 60km wide

01 Apr 2025, 2:11AM UTC

Creeks and rivers in southwest Queensland have spread across the landscape carrying floodwaters from last week’s heavy outback rain – with numerous moderate and major flood warnings in place. The image at the top of this story shows rivers like the Diamantina, the Georgina, and Cooper Creek all in full flood, with waters flowing in a southwesterly direction towards the currently dry Kati Thanda- Lake Eyre Basin in South Australia. The waters will take several weeks to arrive. Cooper Creek – the famous, usually dry watercourse along which explorers Burke and Wills perished of thirst and starvation in 1861 – is the easternmost of the waterways in the satellite image at the top of this story, with floodwaters approximately 60km wide at the broadest point. READ MORE: Flood alerts stretch 3000km across Australia – more rain on the way Below is a view of the landscape two weeks before last weel’s rain event, when most of the country pictured had barely received a drop of rain since the start of 2025. Image: Satellite image showing the dry landscape of far SW Queensland on Sunday, March 30, 2205. Source: NASA Worldview. Here’s a slightly different view of the area after the rain. This satellite image captures a moment a little later on Sunday, March 30 than the image at the top of this story. Image: Satellite image of SW Queensland and NE South Australia on Sunday, March 30, 2025. A fascinating feature of the image is the thousands of tiny white dots. These are cumulus clouds formed by a combination of heat and moisture, as thermal air currents lift moist air from the surface as the day warms. This part of the country would normally have a dry land surface which would hinder the formation of a large mass of cumulus clouds. But with all the recent rain, there is abundant surface moisture. Note that there are no clouds over the flooded creeks and rivers. That’s because the air temperature is much lower over the water, and that's why the creeks and rivers stand out clearly on what is otherwise a relatively cloudy satellite image. A reminder of how much rain fell It takes a lot of rain to put so much water into outback waterways, and some of the totals last week were staggering, with too many records to mention. Image: Total rainfall for Australia in the week ending March 31, 2025. Source: BoM.  The map above provides an overview of last week’s rainfall across Australia. As you can see, huge parts of central and southwestern Queensland saw totals of 300mm or more. Pockets of the Queensland coastline also saw those sorts of totals – and it’s not often that newsworthy rainfall figures in places like Mackay are equalled or even eclipsed by the amount that fell in locations as far as 1000km inland. READ MORE: Record rain for iconic outback town What happens to all that floodwater now? In events like this, the water ends up in Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre – if it makes it without evaporating and seeping into the soil along the way – and in this case, there appears to be more than enough water to reach the normally dry salt lake. Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre contains Australia’s lowest point at approximately 15 metres below sea level. It is an "endorheic" basin, which means it has no outflow. If you’ve ever driven between Sydney and Canberra and seen Lake George (which has been full for most of the 2020s but has often been bone dry in recorded history), then you’ve seen another example of an endorheic basin, as Lake George also has no outflow. When floodwaters fill Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre, it’s a bonanza for both wildlife and tourism. There’s even a Lake Eyre Yacht Club whose amusing motto is "Ya gotta be jokin' - No we're not!" The club’s website says the water is expected to arrive in late April.