Jane's Weekly Update: 20th June 2025

THE NEXT WEEK

Over the course of the next week we have significant rain across much of southern Australia.

The second major rain system in the west in a week is affecting those parts today and across much of the weekend. Significant falls for both the west and south coast (thanks to a one-two punch coming from different directions), with lighter but still decent falls extending well inland.

Then the focus shifts to the southeast.

The first system slides across the southeast later Sunday and on Monday. The second pushes in from the west on Tuesday into Wednesday, and there are falls that linger through to Thursday.

Not quite as significant as the long weekend rain system (that was a slow moving cut off low, while this is a series of cold fronts with the driving low well south of the mainland) - but still bringing very handy rainfalls for much of the southeast.

Another out of season rain system may impact northeast Queensland from late next week.

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LOOKING FURTHER AHEAD

If you've been tracking our developing Negative Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) as closely as I have, you will have noticed that the areas of blue-to-purple in the Indian Ocean box have turned rapidly darker over the past few days.

The Ocean had briefly stalled but this indicates it is getting back on track.

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The Indian Ocean index updates only once a week (still showing the stall), but the update early next week could be closer to the threshold.

Crossing this threshold will encourage moisture to be pushed towards Australia over the later part of winter and early to mid part of spring. A key ingredient in the rainfall equation (moisture + instability = rain).

Now, its up to the low pressure systems to spread that rain to where it is needed most.

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In this series I'll take you through the drivers of our weather, highlighting any changes over time and things to watch out for (generally every Friday). It covers weather elements like temperature and rainfall, and how they are driven by moisture from the Pacific and Indian Oceans, as well as bursts of energy from low pressure (SAM and MJO).

See and hear my commentary as I take you through the weather pattern's effects on our rain and temperatures in detail over the next week, with a brief look at week 2 and beyond as well.

Plus what is driving our weather in the weeks and months ahead, with the latest on El Nino/La Nina, the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), the Southern Annular Mode (SAM controls our weather systems), and the Madden Julian Oscillation (MJO connects tropical moisture to our weather systems).

I update this commentary each week, generally on Friday's. Make sure you are signed up (free or a subscription) so you don't miss an update.

Stay up to date with the forecast specifically for your area in our hour by hour outlook for the next 10 days. Download our app for iPhone and Android.

As always, you can see each of these graphics as soon as they update, as well as more information about them under our Rain Outlook and Seasonal Outlook pages within Jane's Update, along with our Snow Forecast in the snow season.