Weather News

Dry spring set to continue across NSW

Tristan Meyers, Tuesday October 13, 2015 - 17:59 AEDT

The start of spring has been unusually dry across most of New South Wales. At halfway through the austral spring, a measly five percent of NSW sites are reporting at least half of their seasonal average.

In September alone, only around one in ten of sites across NSW reported above their monthly average, with all but one of these along the stretch of coast encompassing the Hunter, Mid-North Coast and Northern Rivers.

So far this season, we are fairing similar to last spring, which was the driest since 2002 and the 10th driest on record.

Storms and showers at the start of this week provided some much needed soil moisture and parched the earth around the Upper Western and western North West Slopes and Plains. Brewarrina, Lightning Ridge, Walgett and Bourke saw their best rainfall since August. For Thargomindah, Walgett, Brewarrina and Lightning Ridge, this was the first time in seven weeks since any rain fell in the gauge.

Next Sunday is the best chance of showers for locations around the Central West Slopes and Plains and some parts of the North West Slopes and Plains and Central Tablelands, with a few stormy days after that.

Further ahead, there are some indications of a trough bringing decent rainfall to western and central parts of NSW towards the end of the coming fortnight. Unfortunately, climate influences of a positive Indian Ocean Dipole and El Nino conditions are likely to bring an overall drier-than-average end of spring.

- Weatherzone

© Weatherzone 2015

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