Weekly Update: 4th April 2025

Rain is contracting northeastwards through Queensland with a quiet period ahead for much of the state. A low delivers 25 to 50 mm of rain for a large part of the southwest over the next few days. Cold fronts slide across the southeast bringing bursts of cold air, but little if any rain for those inland as there is no connection to tropical moisture.

The Pacific Ocean is currently neutral and is likely to head towards El Nino later this year.

This stops tropical moisture from being pushed towards Australia - however, we have our own source (all the warm waters off the east coast) to offset this drying trend.

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The Indian Ocean is currently Positive and remains near there for the next few month - also working to stop tropical moisture from being pushed towards Australia - however we also have incredibly warm waters off the west coast, so we also have our own source of moisture to offset this drying trend.

Later in the year the modelling has it nearing or potentially crossing into Negative. This works to push tropical moisture towards Australia - so that's a double dose from the west.

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So, despite a potential El Nino, and the current Positive IOD, we have our own sources of moisture.

That's just one part of the rain equation - you also need the moisture to run into low pressure to turn it into rain.

That's determined by the weather pattern.

When a climate driver known as SAM is Positive, the pattern is dominated by troughs and lows. These are very polarising, bringing rain to one side, but leaving it dry on the other. Those to the north and east pick up the rain... those the south and west do not.

A Positive SAM also limits the strong cold fronts, instead giving us sliding fronts like we're seeing this weekend in the southeast. It encourages high pressure to become stubborn and block the connection between tropical moisture and the weather systems in the south.

All of this leads to a lack of rain, no matter how much moisture we have to play with.

We don't know what SAM will do this year, but so far it has been fairly Positive... and it was Positive for the majority of last year which led to significant drought for those southwest of the low pressure that didn't see the regular cold fronts they are used to.

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The Bureau's latest outlook reflects this picture... better odds for rain to the northeast, and lower odds to the southwest.

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For a full update, don't miss my video, walking you through all of this in detail:

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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.