During the initial full week of campaigning for political candidates, Australians confronted weather conditions at their most extreme, as intense rainfall and floods, heatwaves, and droughts swept across the nation.
To contend with the aftereffects of flooding, including significant stock and property damage, Queensland’s cities and towns endured a deluge, with a year’s worth of rain pouring in just a handful of days. As of Monday, these areas were still struggling under the weight of the recent inundation according to the Bureau of Meteorology’s senior meteorologist Jonathan How.
Townsville in North Queensland teetered on the edge of surpassing its single-year rainfall record for 2025, after only three months, with rainfall totaling 2.35 meters at the airport, inching close to the 2000 record of 2.4 meters. Meanwhile, Winton, the ‘dinosaur capital’ of Australia’s Outback, had already far surpassed its average yearly rainfall of 387.8mm with 510mm, leading the multitude of inland places that have already exceeded their average annual rainfall.
Additional rainfall was projected for Western and Southern Queensland on Tuesday and Wednesday, possibly extending or renewing rises following the low-pressure system, which originated from ex-Tropical Cyclone Diane’s remnants now affecting Western Australia and the Northern Territory, move eastward pointed out How.
Inland floodwaters in imminent danger of advancing towards Kati Thanda/Lake Eyre in South Australia over the next few weeks or even months. Surf Life Saving NSW has cautioned that dangerous surf conditions are likely to persist off the NSW coast, prompting potentially widespread beach closures as a low-pressure system perpetuates large waves and swells for coastal locales.
Amidst all this, the residents of Perth are facing an extended period of extreme heat, including an ongoing streak of six consecutive days with temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius, matching the all-time March record. Adelaide is enduring its driest December to March period on record, with no significant rain in sight according to How.
Although more rainfall benefits large parts of Queensland and Northern NSW due to ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred, storage levels in the Murray-Darling Basin have remained 20% lower than 2024, with agricultural zones in South Australia and Western Victoria unsurprisingly still dry.
Heightening concerns, Australia also recorded its warmest March day, achieving an average of 38.7 degrees Celsius, compounding the 1.5-degree warming since 1910.
