Weekly Update: 2nd May 2025

May 2025 has the potential to be very dry for the vast majority of the country. All of our climate drivers, and the weather pattern, are limiting the amount of rain that can fall. Things may get a shake up later in winter or early spring. 

• ENSO: Neutral and starting to show signs of heading close to El Nino later in winter and spring. The last El Nino had limited drying impact for Australia as the waters off Queensland didn’t cool down - but there are signs of a cooling well off the coast now and this is something to watch closely over the next month or two.
• Indian Ocean: currently near Positive which can limit the amount of moisture being sent towards Australia. Forecasts show Negative or near Negative  is in our future, but not until later in winter or spring. This would help send moisture our way. 
• SAM: mainly Positive, limiting the impact from cold fronts over southern Australia. SAM was positive for the majority of last year, and continued that way over the summer and into autumn. 
• MJO: weak and not sending any tropical moisture our way.

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As we head into early winter there are signs of a slight weakening of the dry signal, but not by much.

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Things improve in the outlook as we head into mid winter, with the Indian Ocean potentially starting to send juicy northwest cloudbands towards the south:

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For a full analysis, settle in for my video (about 13 minutes long this week) where I walk you through each of the drivers and what their impact is likey to be over the next few months, along with a preview of the new technology coming to Jane's Weather soon.

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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.