Australia just had its 2nd wettest spring in 123 years of records and its coldest spring since 2010.

The Southern Hemisphere’s spring of 2022 was dominated by three wet-phase climate drivers in the Australian region:

• La Nina in the Pacific Ocean
• A negative Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) in the Indian Ocean
• A predominantly positive Southern Annular Mode (SAM) to the south of Australia

This trio of climate drivers caused an exceptional amount of cloud cover and rain over Australia between September and November.

The blue shaded areas on the map below show where rainfall was above the long-term average during spring 2022. The darkest blue shading shows where rainfall was highest on record for the season, while the second darkest blue represents areas that had seasonal rainfall totals in the top 10 percent of historical records.

Image: Observed rainfall deciles during spring 2022.

Based on spatially-averaged rainfall, Australia just had its 2nd wettest spring in records dating back to 1900, beaten only by 2010. More locally, it was the wettest spring on record for NSW, Victoria and the Murray-Darling Basin.

It was also an abnormally cool spring for large areas of Australia, due to increased cloud cover from La Nina, the negative IOD and positive SAM, combined with the passage of several unseasonably strong cold fronts.

Based on daytime maximum temperatures, it was the coldest spring since 1976 in NSW, 1992 in Vic and WA and 2010 for Qld, SA and Australia as a whole.

Image: Observed maximum temperature deciles during spring 2022.

There was also a noticeable lack of heat extremes across the country during the last three months.

Last season’s highest temperatures in NSW (39.5ºC), SA (41.1ºC) and WA (44.5ºC) were each state's lowest spring daily maximum temperatures in 11 to 12 years. Wyndham’s nation-topping 44.5ºC was also Australia’s lowest spring daily maximum temperature since 2011.

Impressively, Victoria’s highest temperature during spring was only 33.3ºC at Walpeup. This is the lowest spring maximum temperature in seasonal records dating back to at least 1957.

Image: Victoria’s highest daily spring temperatures since 1957.