News

  • Seasons & regions key to linking El Niño, La Niña & rainfall

    New research conducted using machine learning has highlighted the importance of focusing on specific seasons and regions when using major modes of climate variability to predict rainfall.  Large-scale modes of climate variability, such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), are often identified in advance by major weather organisations around

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  • Floodwaters submerge a road, with a yellow "Water Over Road" warning sign partially surrounded by murky water, power poles, and trees in the background.

    Why was 2022 in Australia so wet, and will it happen again?

    Slow-moving systems of low pressure, high levels of atmospheric moisture and a perfect storm of La Niña, the Indian Ocean Dipole and the Southern Annular Mode caused Australia’s devastating 2022 floods, but more research is needed to understand the role of climate change in future heavy rainfall. Eastern Australia experienced record-breaking rainfall and flooding during

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  • Colourful high-rise apartment building with repeating rows of windows and balconies, palm trees in front, and a basketball hoop in the foreground.

    Humid heat is exceeding human tolerance & causing mass mortality

    Critical physiological limits to human heat tolerance are drawing ever closer, highlighting the urgent need to limit further climate warming and emphasising the adaptation challenge ahead. Writing in the journal Nature Climate Change, 21st Century Weather researchers and their collaborators at institutions around the world offered a stark reminder that the hottest boreal summer on

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  • Sunlit view of the Glass House Mountains in Queensland, Australia, with a lone tree in the foreground and beams of light cutting across a forested landscape.

    Ailie Gallant elected AMOS Fellow

    21st Century Weather congratulates our Chief Investigator Ailie Gallant, who has been elected a Fellow of the Australian Meteorological & Oceanographic Society (AMOS). Ailie is an Associate Professor in the School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment at Monash University, and a leading expert in climate extremes, particularly drought. Her election as an AMOS Fellow is

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  • Snow-dusted rocky mountaintop with low shrubs in the foreground, overlooking a lake and distant hills under heavy, dramatic storm clouds.

    Helen Cleugh & Kim Reid receive AMOS Awards

    21st Century Weather’s Helen Cleugh & Kim Reid have received distinguished awards from the Australian Meteorology & Oceanographic Society (AMOS). Morton Medal: Helen Cleugh  The 2024 Morton Medal was awarded to Dr Helen Cleugh, chair of the 21st Century Weather Advisory Board.  According to AMOS, through her own research, and especially through her research leadership

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