There was intense, persistent rainfall across much of eastern Australia, with regional riverside communities in Victoria, NSW and Queensland bearing the brunt of severe flooding and the most significant floods occurring at the beginning and end of 2022.

In many parts of the Murray-Darling Basin, the flooding occurred over prolonged periods, or on multiple occasions, continuing to affect communities throughout October and into November.

However, rainfall was below average for western Tasmania, much of the north of the Northern Territory and the far south-west of Western Australia.

Australia’s national mean temperature was half a degree warmer than the 1961-1990 average, and it was especially warm in the tropics, with severe to extreme heatwave conditions affecting parts of the north and the west during the year.

In addition to the influence of natural drivers, Australia’s climate is increasingly affected by global warming. It has warmed on average by 1.47 degrees (give or take 0.24 degrees) between when national records began in 1910 and 2021, with most of the warming occurring since 1950.

The sea temperature around nearly all of Australia as a whole was much warmer than average, and the highest on record across large areas of the waters to the north of Australia, across much of the Arafura Sea and the Coral Sea.

The warm waters around Australia influence our climate as they act as a source of moisture through evaporation, which increases humidity, cloudiness and the chance of rainfall.

To the south of Australia, the net sea-ice extent around Antarctica in February 2022 was the lowest on record, a finding based on near-continuous satellite imagery since 1979.

Australia’s weather will become even more chaotic in coming years and decades, the bureau found in its recent State of the Climate report, piling pressure on the federal government to increase its climate targets.

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