Given the grave warnings given last autumn 2026 (BOM archive of outlooks) of the possible impact of a El Nino weather pattern, and its evidential harm caused during the northern hemisphere summer, we have had a rather wet winter. Friends who grow broad-acre cereal crops are very happy, given the very poor years in 2024 and 2025 (for example see https://thesouthaustralian.com.au/2024-25-south-australia-grain-crop-well-down-on-the-previous-year/). Our own data (31 years in our current location), shows winter to be the 4th wettest on record (1996 being the wettest, followed by 2013, and 2004). However, August has been extremely wet, being the wettest we have seen. Our winter median is 244 mm, this year we had 338 mm and August median is 79 mm and we had 144 mm.
The great winter rain has raised every weed seed possible in our garden! So I have spent the past two weeks weeding, mowing and spraying. It has also been a great time to transplant, dig over over and tired areas and generally clean up the garden.
The graph below shows some of our yearly accumulated totals. We hope the final period of 2026 has some rain, although some farmers say they have enough soil moisture to get them through if spring turns out to be exceptional dry.
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| Rain totals for every second year |
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