Top 5 Cities: Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, and Adelaide
Bushfires, reef bleaching and record temperatures
A fresh climate update for Australia is being generated…
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Precipitation, Sunshine, Frost and Snow are converted to standard deviations from their own average so they can share an axis with Temperature anomalies.
Metric
Insight
Temperature
10-Yr AverageActual Year
Climate History
40 of 40 events
1912Volcanic
Novarupta (Katmai) eruption
The largest volcanic eruption anywhere in the world in the 20th century - 13 km3 of magma, about thirty times the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption - at Novarupta in Alaska on 6-8 June 1912. Ash reached 100,000 ft and cooled the Northern Hemisphere by roughly 0.3°C over 1912-13. Unlike a tropical eruption such as Pinatubo, a high-latitude eruption's haze stays in its own hemisphere, so it did little to the Southern Hemisphere.
After the Second World War, coal and oil use grew rapidly across Europe, North America and the Soviet Union. Global sulphur dioxide emissions rose from about 30 to about 130 million tonnes a year by 1980, and the sulphate haze they formed masked part of the greenhouse warming underneath - the effect known as 'global dimming'.
ENSO matters in Australia, most of all in September-November: the El Niño-La Niña cycle explains about 41% of the year-to-year swing in Australia's September-November rainfall, with El Niño years tending drier and La Niña years wetter. That puts Australia among the 88 countries in this site's data where ENSO's influence is strong enough to be worth reporting.
1956 was the wettest year on record in the Murray-Darling Basin. Months of rain across Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria sent the River Murray to its largest flood then recorded in South Australia, peaking at Renmark in August. The cloudy, wet year is also Australia's 3rd-coldest in this site's 1950-2025 record.
Charles David Keeling begins continuous measurements of atmospheric CO₂ at Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, starting at about 315 ppm. The record has risen every year since and is now the longest unbroken direct measurement of CO₂ anywhere - the 'Keeling Curve'.
In the La Niña year of 1974, the remnants of Cyclone Wanda stalled over south-east Queensland. On 26 January Brisbane had 314 mm of rain, its wettest day in 87 years, and the river peaked at 5.45 m in the city - its largest flood since 1893. 16 people died and 8,000 homes were destroyed. 1974 is Australia's coldest year in this site's 1950-2025 record.
The Pacific Decadal Oscillation - a slow natural cycle in North Pacific sea temperatures - switches from its cool to its warm phase in 1976-77. The change was abrupt enough to be called the 1976-77 Pacific Climate Shift: it warmed Alaska and the west coast of North America, and reorganised North Pacific fisheries.
Global sulphur dioxide emissions peak at about 130 million tonnes a year, then begin a long decline as Europe, North America and Japan clean up their air. As the aerosol mask thins, the rate of global warming picks up through the 1980s.
A sulphur-rich eruption in Mexico whose aerosol cloud stayed in the stratosphere for more than two years, cooling the Northern Hemisphere by about 0.2°C.
Australia's rainfall for September-November 1982 ran -38% against its 1961-90 average - the dry September-November that El Niño usually brings here. On NOAA's Relative Oceanic Niño Index this is the strongest El Niño since 1950.
British Antarctic Survey scientists Joe Farman, Brian Gardiner and Jon Shanklin publish their Halley and Faraday measurements on 16 May 1985, showing October ozone over Antarctica had fallen to about two-thirds of earlier decades. The cause is traced to chlorofluorocarbons, and the finding triggers the fastest international environmental response on record.
Signed in 1987 to phase out ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons, the Montreal Protocol turned out to be one of the most consequential climate treaties ever agreed. CFCs are potent greenhouse gases in their own right, and NOAA estimates the Protocol prevented up to 2°C of warming by 2100 - around 1°C from the emissions avoided, and up to 1°C more by sparing forests and other carbon sinks from increased ultraviolet radiation.
Atmospheric CO₂ passes 350 ppm. In the same year James Hansen told a US Senate committee that global warming was already detectable, the moment it entered mainstream politics. Twenty years later, in 2008, Hansen proposed 350 ppm as the safe upper limit - a level the world had already left behind.
Australia's rainfall for September-November 1988 ran -13% against its 1961-90 average - the opposite of the wet September-November La Niña usually brings here.
Daytime warming catches up with the night-led pattern
Across 1961-90, 81% of the world's land saw nights warming faster than days. Across 1991-2020 the pattern reversed: 70% saw days warming faster, as the industrial haze that had been dimming daytime sunshine was cleaned up. The study compares two fixed thirty-year windows; measured as a turning point, this site's own global series turns around 1982.
Pinatubo's cooling is only faintly visible in Australia's own record. 1992, the year after the June 1991 eruption, ranks 15th-coldest of the 76 years there. A single large eruption can hold temperatures down for two or three years; it cannot reverse the trend.
Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation flips to a warm phase
The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation - a slow natural cycle in North Atlantic sea temperatures, roughly 60-70 years long - flips to its warm phase in 1995. Warm phases are linked to more active Atlantic hurricane seasons, wetter summers in parts of north-west Europe and more frequent drought in the central and western United States.
One of the strongest El Niños on record, and the one the textbook El Niño pattern is usually drawn from. It pushed 1998 to what was then the warmest year ever measured, and set off the first global-scale coral bleaching event.
Pacific Decadal Oscillation flips back to a cool phase
The Pacific Decadal Oscillation - a slow natural cycle in North Pacific sea temperatures - flips back to its cool phase around 1998-99. The cool phase that followed is one reason global surface warming appeared to slow in the 2000s, as more heat went into the deep Pacific.
The longest and most severe drought on record in south-east Australia and the Murray-Darling Basin, the country's largest river system. It brought water restrictions to most major cities and devastated irrigated farming.
Australia's rainfall for September-November 2007 ran -12% against its 1961-90 average - the opposite of the wet September-November La Niña usually brings here.
On 7 February 2009, after a heatwave that took Melbourne to 46°C, hundreds of bushfires swept across Victoria. 173 people died and more than 2,000 homes were destroyed - Australia's deadliest bushfire disaster.
Australia's own heatwave days - days in warm spells well above the local norm - rose from a 1961-90 average of 4.3 a year to 13.5 in 2016-25 - 3 times as many. Worldwide, heatwave days have roughly doubled each decade since 2010, as the whole temperature distribution has shifted upwards.
Atmospheric CO₂ passes 400 ppm at Mauna Loa on 9 May 2013 - a level the planet had not seen for 3-5 million years, since the Pliocene, when sea levels were many metres higher.
Australia's rainfall for September-November 2015 ran -29% against its 1961-90 average - the dry September-November that El Niño usually brings here. By the raw ONI index it was the strongest El Niño ever measured - a reminder that a strong index does not guarantee a strong local outcome.
Globally, the eleven warmest years on record have all happened since 2015. Australia's own record is a looser fit - six of its eleven warmest fall in that span, with 2014, 2013, 2009, 2005 and 1958 outside it. Its warmest year is 2019.
May to September 2016 was Australia's wettest on record, with each of the five months among the ten wettest in more than a century. A strong negative Indian Ocean Dipole - warm water off north-west Australia feeding moisture across the continent - drove much of it; on this site's rainfall record July-September 2016 was Australia's wettest since 1950.
2019 was Australia's warmest and driest year on record - 1.52°C above the 1961-1990 average, with rainfall about 40% below - and the first year with both records at once. A strong, long-lived positive Indian Ocean Dipole affected Australia from May to the end of the year, and a rare spring breakdown of the southern polar vortex cut rainfall further; on this site's record September-November 2019 was Australia's driest since 1950. December's fire weather was the worst on record, and destructive bushfires burned in every state through the 2019-20 summer.
Global fossil CO₂ emissions fell about 5.8% in 2020, from 37.0 to 34.8 billion tonnes, yet atmospheric CO₂ still rose 2.5 ppm - the dip barely registers in the atmospheric record. Emissions were back to pre-pandemic levels by 2022.
New international shipping rules cut the sulphur allowed in ship fuel from 3.5% to 0.5% almost overnight, removing about 8 million tonnes of sulphur dioxide a year. With less sulphate haze over the oceans, it may have added around 0.1°C of warming by 2023-24.
In February and March 2022 extreme rain flooded south-east Queensland and northern New South Wales. At Lismore the Wilsons River peaked at 14.4 m - about 2 m above any flood in records going back to 1887 - and 2022 went on to be Lismore's wettest year on record.
Australia's rainfall for September-November 2023 ran -25% against its 1961-90 average - the dry September-November that El Niño usually brings here. Globally it helped produce the record temperatures of 2023 and 2024.
Source: Copernicus ERA5 (countries) · NOAA Climate at a Glance (continents, US states & climate regions) · Met Office (UK) · GPCC (rainfall, snow) · World Bank CCKP (frost). Anomalies are vs the 1961–1990 baseline. See methodology.
Australia has a arid climate (Köppen BSh: Hot steppe), with both a warm/cold cycle and a wet/dry cycle through the year. January is typically the warmest month, averaging 28.7°C, while July is the coldest at 15.0°C. Annual precipitation averages around 477mm, concentrated mostly in the wet season.
Warmest month
Jan 29°C
Coldest month
Jul 15°C
Annual rainfall
477mm
Wettest month
Jan 90mm
Monthly climate normals (2016–2025) - bar colour and height show average temperature, the shaded area shows average monthly precipitation.
Data: Our World in Data / NOAA (precipitation: GPCC (DWD); frost: World Bank CCKP).
Australia has both a clear warm/cold cycle (±6.8°C) and a wet/dry cycle (5× wet:dry ratio). Both sides of the annual rhythm are shown below.
Shifting summer
9 days Longer
Warm Season
1940–1969 Baseline: 5 Oct → 20 Apr · 197 days
2016–2025 Now: 28 Sept → 22 Apr · 206 days
JanJFebFMarMAprAMayMJunJJulJAugASepSOctONovNDecD
Spr 6 days EarlierAut 2 days Later
Shifting wet season
5 days Shorter
Wet Season
1891–1920 Baseline: 24 Dec → 6 Apr · 103 days
2016–2025 Now: 18 Dec → 26 Mar · 98 days
JanJFebFMarMAprAMayMJunJJulJAugASepSOctONovNDecD
Onset 5 days EarlierEnd 11 days Earlier
+2.5% annual rain
baseline yr·recent yr·ring = global temp anomaly
Wet-season onset
24 Dec→18 Dec
6 days Earlier
When 25% of annual rain has fallen
Wet-season end
6 Apr→26 Mar
11 days Earlier
When 75% of annual rain has fallen
Peak-rain month
Jan→Jan
unchanged
Wet months: 4 → 5
1891–19202016–2025Wet-month threshold (39 mm)
Monthly precipitation climatology. A “wet month” exceeds the baseline monthly mean (dashed gold line). Biggest month-to-month shift: Mar (+9 mm, +16%).
Data: Our World in Data / NOAA (precipitation: GPCC (DWD); frost: World Bank CCKP).
Live GDACS alerts in Australia - Red (Major), Orange (Severe) or Green (Moderate) - and the long-term record of weather and climate disasters.
Live Alerts
Loading…
Alerts, Last 12 Months
Major
0
None since 2021
Severe
0
None since 2021
Moderate
1,278
Weather Disasters in 2024 - Latest Complete Year
Disasters
3
4.6 a year, 2015-2024
Deaths
2
12 a year, 2015-2024
Weather Disasters, 2015-2024
Most Frequent
Flood
20 of 46 disasters
Deadliest
Flood
49 of 122 deaths
Disasters: EM-DAT, CRED / UCLouvain, via Our World in Data - 10+ deaths, 100+ people affected, or a declared emergency or call for international help. Alerts: GDACS.
The natural climate patterns that measurably shape seasonal temperature or rainfall in Australia, from this site’s own data since 1950 - long-term trends removed, and ENSO’s share taken out before scoring the others, so each is credited only for what it adds.
El Niño / La Niña (ENSO)strong link
The tropical Pacific’s warm and cool swings - the biggest natural driver of year-to-year climate.
Now: El Niño (strong) · RONI +1.7°C(Jul-Sep 2026)
Forecast - 100% very strong at peak, Sep-Nov, then neutral by Apr-Jun 2027 (NOAA). La Niña from Oct 2027 in SNU’s AI model.
Strongest in Sep-Nov rainfall: El Niño tends to bring drier conditions here, La Niña the reverse (about 41% of year-to-year variation).
Every figure on this page is sourced from official, openly published climate datasets. Anomalies are calculated against the 1961–1990 baseline (temperature) and 1991–2020 (rainfall, sunshine, frost) - see the Methodology & Sources page for the complete dataset list and update calendar.
Australia is warming in line with the rest of the world. The page above shows the latest monthly temperature anomaly versus the 1961-1990 baseline, the long-term annual trend, and the region's rank in the historical record. The headline panel also shows the long-term trend rate per decade and the warmest and coolest years on file.
What is the climate like in Australia?
Australia has a arid climate (Köppen BSh: Hot steppe), with both a warm/cold cycle and a wet/dry cycle through the year. January is typically the warmest month, averaging 28.7°C, while July is the coldest at 15.0°C. Annual precipitation averages around 477mm, concentrated mostly in the wet season.
Which climate drivers affect the weather in Australia?
Measured from seasonal temperature and rainfall in Australia since 1950, with the long-term warming trend removed (and ENSO's own share removed before scoring the other drivers), the climate drivers with a clear effect here are: El Niño / La Niña (ENSO) - strong, strongest in Sep-Nov rainfall, which El Niño tends to make drier here (La Niña the reverse), about 41% of year-to-year variation; the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) - moderate, strongest in Jul-Sep rainfall, which a positive IOD tends to make drier here (a negative IOD the reverse), about 16% of year-to-year variation. Their current state is shown in the Climate Drivers section of this page.
What extreme weather affects Australia?
In 2024, the latest complete year, the international disaster database EM-DAT recorded 3 weather and climate disasters in Australia, against an average of 4.6 a year in 2015-2024, with 2 deaths. Over those ten years the most frequent type was flood (20 of 46) and the deadliest flood. GDACS, the UN and European Commission's disaster alert system, issued 0 Major (Red) and 0 Severe (Orange) alerts for Australia in the last 12 months. Live alerts are on this page and on the Extreme Weather tracker.
Where does the climate data for Australia come from?
Climate data for Australia comes from Our World in Data, sourcing Copernicus ERA5 and HadCRUT5 (national temperature anomaly) and the Global Carbon Project via Our World in Data (CO₂ emissions), refreshed every month, when the upstream temperature and rainfall data are refreshed.
What is the climate baseline used on this page?
Anomalies on this page are calculated against the 1961-1990 climatological baseline, which is the standard reference period used by the Met Office, NOAA, IPCC and most national climate services. Some panels also show the source-native 1901-2000 (NOAA) or 1991-2020 (WMO) baselines for verification. See Methodology & Sources for the full reference.
Which areas does the Australia climate data cover?
The Australia climate profile covers Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and surrounding areas. Bushfires, reef bleaching and record temperatures
How often is the Australia climate update refreshed?
The Australia climate update is refreshed monthly, typically a few days after the previous month closes and the upstream provider (Met Office HadUK-Grid, NOAA Climate at a Glance, Copernicus ERA5 or the Global Carbon Project) publishes its update. See the Climate Rankings for cross-region comparisons.
What counts as a Heatwave Day on the Australia climate page?
Heatwave Days use the Warm Spell Duration Index (WSDI) - the WMO/ETCCDI-standard heatwave measure: days that are part of a run of 6 or more consecutive days above the local 90th-percentile temperature for that calendar day. The 90th-percentile threshold varies by time of year (a hot day in January is judged differently to one in July) but is fixed to the 1961-1990 baseline for every year shown - it does not shift as the climate warms, which is why Heatwave Days trend upward over time.
Does the Australia climate page include frost and snow data?
Yes. Frost Days (days with a minimum temperature below 0°C, World Bank CCKP) and snow water-equivalent (GPCC) are shown alongside temperature and precipitation, each measured against the 1961-1990 baseline where a like-for-like historical comparison is available.
What major climate events has Australia experienced?
Major climate events in Australia include The Murray-Darling floods of 1956; The Brisbane flood of 1974; Australia's Millennium Drought (2001-2009); Black Saturday, 2009; Australia's wettest May-September, 2016; Australia's 'Black Summer', 2019-20; The eastern Australia floods of 2022. The Climate History panel on this page lists 40 sourced events and pattern shifts relevant to Australia, the earliest from 1912 - 7 about Australia itself and the rest global context such as volcanic eruptions and El Niño events. Each entry carries its own sources and can be searched, filtered to local events or by category, and sorted by date; scrolling the list moves a cursor across the chart above so you can see where each event falls in the record.
Where does the Climate History list for Australia come from, and how is it checked?
It is a hand-reviewed register, not an automatic feed. Every entry is sourced, and each one records how it was verified - against this site's own data series, against a peer-reviewed paper, or against the public record of the event. 16 of the 40 entries here are written specifically about Australia, usually quoting its own ranking or measured figures. The rest give global or national context shared with wider pages. Where a figure is narrower than it first appears, or a famous claim does not hold locally, the entry says so.
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