Weather Predictions 2022: Agricultural Insight

Article by: Hari Yellina (Orchard Tech)

Hot and dry are the words most likely to wrap up most of Australia’s introduction to 2022, with limited rainfall expected across the nation. Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Jonathan How said Queensland and the Northern Territory will see some rainfall, but nothing more than 20mm is expected. In Queensland, it will be dry conditions for most of the state though, with only the South East set to see any rain. There will be showers across the southeast of Queensland tomorrow, the risk of a thunderstorm mainly for inland parts of the southeast, but the nation is not expecting a lot of rainfall.

In New South Wales, showers and thunderstorms in the northeast close to the Queensland border are likely, and those thunderstorms could extend down the east coast towards Sydney and the ACT. It will be dry for central and western New South Wales [on Saturday], and getting hot as well across inland parts. The story is similar for Victoria, with the forecast looking dry across the state, and very hot. The main impacts will be just a few showers for the coastal strip, particularly south of about Mackay, but we will see some gale force marine winds as well as some hazardous surf conditions with some strong easterly swell.

Next week Queenslanders will be heating up, with heatwave conditions across the central and northern regions. Mr How said severely to locally extreme heatwave conditions are likely, with Rockhampton to hit 40 degrees and Cairns and the northeast to see continuous days in the high 30s. He said Birdsville will be the hottest town next week, with 45 degrees expected on Sunday and Monday.