MOST of SA has returned to a more “average” year of weather, following two years of abnormal patterns, according to Bureau of Meteorology senior climatologist Darren Ray.
He said some of the 2016 conditions had been still in play at the start of 2017.
“We had a very wet year last year, with a strong negative phase from the Indian Ocean dipole,” he said.
“The rainfall at the start of this year was typically above average.”
After a fairly wet January and February, Mr Ray said March started to dry off, before a return to a wetter April for much of the state.
“June was probably one of the more interesting months,” he said.
“There was a strong high pressure system leading to one of the driest Junes on record.”
There were some stark differences in varying parts of the state with the far north west experiencing rain above average to well above average from April to October, while it was the opposite in the south west.
Mr Ray said the Eyre Peninsula had a particularly dry start to the cropping season.
“SA had fairly reasonable rain in April, with significant rainfall totals across most of the state, except the EP missed out,” he said.
“EP croppers had a poor start to the cropping season.
“By the time it got to July, things were looking pretty grim.”
Mr Ray said conditions did pick up from July to September, but the region ended up with below average rain for the April to October period.
He said there was a similar, but less extreme, situation on Yorke Peninsula.
“YP started the season a bit drier than average but did well during July to October and ended up with close to average rainfall,” he said.
Parts of the Mid North, Far North, Riverland and Kangaroo Island also ended up with slightly below average seasonal rainfall from April to October, while the Fleurieu Peninsula, Mallee and South East were primarily close to average.
Mr Ray said there had been some extremes in temperature in Qld and the NT, including some record highs in the winter months, but this generally did not transfer down into SA.
He said the Adelaide region had ended up about half a degree above the average temperature for the year as a whole.
Mr Ray said 2017 had started with early signs indicating a weak chance of an El Nino forming into winter and spring.
“As we went through autumn, the modelling went neutral throughout most of the cropping season,” he said.
“Since spring we have started to see indications of a late La Nina developing.”
He said there had been an “unusually late” La Nina event declared at the start of this month.
“It hasn’t had much influence yet,” he said.
“It has been a fairly neutral year, in comparison to the 2015 strong El Nino and in 2016 with the strong Indian Ocean dipole.
“This has been a bit more of an average year for SA, compared to the previous two years.”