FORECAST IN CONTEXT: In September, the Victoria Drought Resilience Adoption & Innovation Hub emphasised the move into an uncertain stage, where it is unclear how the season will develop. Although El Niño is often perceived to be directly associated with droughts, the Bureau of Meteorology emphasises that ENSO (El Niño–Southern Oscillation) is only one of several climate drivers that are used in the Bureau’s sophisticated forecast models – and it’s not necessarily a decisive one. PHOTO: Alison Ward
AFTER September’s El Niño declaration, the drier times many anticipated didn’t occur – so what happened?
On September 19 last year, the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) declared an El Niño event. It followed several months in the “neutral” phase, after the three-year La Niña occurrence was declared finished on 10 March 2023.
Professor Michael Tausz, director of the Victoria Drought Resilie...
