Weekly Update: 17th April 2025

Cyclone Errol is heading towards the northwest coast, and should make landfall over Easter.

The rain from this one isn't heading to Queensland like we saw last time, that produced huge areas of flooding, that is still evident today with six catchments in Major Flood.

Instead, this one is heading south.

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Much of the southwest (away from the west coast) has done very well to begin the season with some parts seeing more than 50mm, and a few more than 100mm.

Conversely, the past week continued dry for those drought areas of the southeast.

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Back to Cyclone Errol and his moisture - that is going to push southwards, and meet up with low pressure.

This should spread rain across the south!

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Another burst of rain in the southwest (again away from that western coast), then crossing SA, VIC, TAS and NSW.

The main low travels a touch too far south to get huge falls from this one in our drought areas - and this set up doesn't help those further inland, the rain dries up as it heads over the ranges. Then the rain increases again when the low hits the Tasman Sea - again, heavy falls on the coast but not inland.

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I walk you through all the detail for the next week in this video, including what we can see in week two, and the longer term outlook for the seasons ahead:

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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.