The Southern Highlands and Tablelands could be in for one of the wettest winters on record predicts the Bureau of Meteorology.
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The Bureau released its Winter climate outlook on Thursday and a continuation of La Nina, while weakening, will be a major factor influencing above average rainfall.
The Outlook predicts the unusually wet conditions for inland parts of New South Wales, South Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory are likely to be in the top 20 per cent of wettest winters.
With already saturated catchments in south-eastern Australia, the winter rain extends the flood risk for these regions.
The flood waters in low lying areas in Queensland and New South Wales will slowly move inland towards South Australia over coming months.
The Bureau is also predicting a strong likelihood of warmer than normal conditions around the coastal regions with cooler than average temperatures across a majority of inland Australia.
The Highlands and Tablelands fall somewhere in the transitional range and winter temperatures are likely to be fairly regular according to mapping provided by the Bureau.
However, the La Nina conditions will see almost all parts of Australia experiencing warmer than average night-time temperatures.
The winter outlooks reflect several climate influences, including a developing negative Indian Ocean Dipole, a slowly declining La Nina in the Pacific Ocean and warmer than average waters around northern Australia.
The Winter 2022 Outlook can be found on the BOM website at www.bom.gov.au/climate/ahead.
