South Australia - Fast Break

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Volume 2 | Issue 1 | South Australia | Published: 04 January 2019

Welcome to the first edition of our second year of the “Fast Break” newsletter for the South Australian grains industry. If you like it, please consider passing it on through your networks and subscribing.

A weak El Niño like ocean appeared in November and December 2018. Despite the central Pacific Ocean and surface interested in the concept of El Niño the atmosphere above in terms of pressure, cloud and wind patterns weren’t having a bar of it. Consequently, the attempt rapidly collapsed to neutral over January. But, a risk still remains that it could come back properly this year.
Current indicators are neutral, or in the case of cloud and trade winds weakly El Niño.
Similarly, to the same time in 2015, a large slug of warm water remains at depth in the western Pacific. Trade wind reversals to the east of PNG will need to be watched in coming months, as we don’t want to see westerly wind bursts force that warm water over to South America and kick off a more serious El Niño. Current model forecasts suggest a weak one can hang around over autumn but most think it will collapse in winter. Bare in mind, model skill at this time is poor as it will be essentially random weather around PNG that may or may not kick off a potential ElNiño.
Pressure patterns generally have been behaving themselves, but a persistent high pressure in the Tasman Sea has stopped the passage of fronts and allowed frequent movement of warm air from the north, increasing temperatures.
Modelled rainfall predictions for South Australia are split between drier or average, but there is a strong model consensus for a continuation of warmer temperatures.

Model consensus forecast for the next six months