THE Bureau of Meteorology yesterday issued a statement that rainfall in April was below average for western, southern and central parts of the country and the eighth-driest April on record for South Australia.
For the nine months since August 2023, large areas with rainfall deficiencies have intensified in the west of Western Australia.
In eastern Australia, small deficiency areas have expanded and intensified in south-eastern South Australia, south-western Victoria and much of Tasmania.
Areas of longer term, 12 to 17 months, rainfall deficiencies, cover much of the west of Western Australia, with small areas in eastern states, particularly Tasmania.
Storage levels remain low in some storages in central Queensland and many storages across New South Wales, central Tasmania, western Victoria, South Australia, and for Perth and the Pilbara–Gascoyne catchment area in Western Australia.
The national, area-averaged rainfall total in April was 26.0 per cent below the 1961–1990 average.
Rainfall was below average for western, southern and central parts of the country and above in Australia's east and north.
It was the eighth-driest April on record for the South Australia, with area-averaged rainfall 86.4 per cent below average.
Rainfall was below average to very much below average (in the lowest 10 per cent of Aprils since 1900) for a large area of Western Australia including all of the south-west and much of the interior and the Kimberley, most of South Australia, southern Northern Territory, western and southern Tasmania, and parts of western Victoria, north-western New South Wales and central Queensland.
April rainfall was the lowest on record for isolated pockets of Western Australia's south-west coast.
May is the beginning of the dry season in northern Australia, and rainfall is usually low through to the start of the wet season in October.
The long-range forecast released on May 2024, indicates that for May, rainfall is likely to be below median for most of Australia, shifting to close to equal chances of above or below median rainfall in June.