Summer weather wrap up, La Nina makes its mark

Thanks to the oceanic and atmospheric phenomenon 'La Nina' Griffith has seen increased rainfall and cooler daytime temperatures, a big difference to to scorching heat and dry sun that the Riverina usually faces come summertime.

Meteorologist from Weatherzone Chris Matthews said that La Nina had played a significant role in the weather experienced this summer.

"La Nina brings with it an increased risk of above average rainfall and whilst this doesn't always happen it certainly did this year," Mr Matthews said.

"This summer we saw a lot of uncharacteristic rain over inland nsw and a number of intense summer storms which were also more frequent than usual."

According to the Bureau of Meteorology, this summer was dramatically different to that of the summer of 2020/21.

In December Griffith recorded 40.6mm of rain with an impressive 31mm of rain recorded on the first day of the month alone.

December also saw a high of 41.5 degrees and a low of 8.3 with an average of 30 degrees in the day and 15 degrees overnight.

For the month of January, Griffith saw temperatures peak at 39.5 degrees, dropping to a cool 14.7 degrees at its lowest with a median temperature of 32.3 degrees in the day and 19.8 overnight.

January also saw a whopping 172mm of rainfall from the sky across a number of storms, wrecking havoc and causing a number of flash flooding events across the community, notably on January 7^th which saw 54mm of rain.

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The impacts of La Nina are well an truly evident in 2022, with January 2021 only recording 73.2mm of rain, almost 100mm less than Griffith was deluged by this year.

February however dried right up, with only 2.2mm of rain with the temperature peaking at his highest at 36.8 degrees and and a low of 9.7 with a daytime average of 31.3 and overnight average of 16.6.

Last year the end of summer saw 10mm more rain but remained on par with this years forecast averages.

According to Mr Matthews, whilst the summer months had wrapped up, La Nina could still play a major role in the Autumn months to come.

"La Nina is now in its waning phase but there is now way to predict how this weather phenomenon will continue to act and what changed weather patterns we could potentially experience because of it," Mr Matthews said.

"Whilst we can't predict future weather patterns accurately that far ahead temperatures are expected to return closer to average, accounting for the addition of global warming."

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