It’s a dry argument as the north bakes and waits for a wet kept at bay by climate patterns

As Fitzroy Crossing prepares for another week of temperatures consistently climbing above 40 degrees, heat bakes the recently charred landscape.

Here, in the centre of WA’s Kimberley region, bushfires have been blazing for weeks on end. Red dirt is exposed and grass is scarce, but there’s no wet season rain on the horizon according to the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM). 

The unblemished radar is a cause of concern for Chris Townes who manages the 780,000 hectares that make up Gogo Station, almost a third of which have been burnt by bushfires this season.

“We’re having to box mobs of cattle up with other cattle and just hope we get some early storms,” he said.

A combination of dry climatic factors

While an El Niño alone doesn’t necessarily mean a weaker wet season for northern Australia, it does have that effect when combined with a positive Indian Ocean Dipole, which is in place now, explains Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Angeline Prasad.

“What we can expect is a hotter and drier build-up period, with higher than average temperatures and a later start to the wet season,” Ms Prasad said. 

“So your diurnal thunderstorm activity that develops on the sea breeze usually tends to start sometime in October, then become quite regular in early November in the Kimberley.

“But because of this drying effect of both the El Niño and the [positive] Indian Ocean Dipole, this [thunderstorm activity] is likely to be shifted into mid to late November.”

And when the wet season does kick off, it’s predicted to bring less rain than normal, with the Madden Julien Oscillation that’s linked to monsoonal rain currently indiscernible.

“Rainfall totals will be lower than average, compared to the previous three seasons,” Ms Prasad said.

But, as always, predictions are variable.

“We could see some areas that may get average rainfall, there may be areas that may get above average rainfall and some areas will miss out,” she said.

Plenty of water in Lake Argyle

Residents in the East Kimberley have long seen mainland Australia’s largest human-made storage dam, Lake Argyle, as a reliable barometer for the ebbs and flows of the region’s wet season rains.

The lake, which irrigates the Ord Valley agricultural area, is currently more than 92 per cent full, with 10,000 gigalitres, after heavy rainfall in its catchment this year and in 2021.

That’s well over double the amount of water in the lake in late 2021, when it neared a 30-year low.

Earlier this year the lake reached capacity, prompting water to flow over a concrete barrier known as the spillway into a creek that connects back to the Ord River downstream.

Greg Smith has worked as a tourism operator at the lake for decades and said a drier-than-normal wet season would likely have little impact on the lake’s overall capacity.

“We may not have as many waterfalls running for the wet season, but it definitely doesn’t mean doom and gloom, having a below-average rainfall wet season,” he said.

“We might have another 2.5 metres, maybe 3m of drop yet in the lake before we expect water coming back in.”

Cyclones still on the cards

While El Niño conditions lead climatologists to expect fewer cyclones than normal, BOM forecaster Angeline Prasad warned those in northern Australia against complacency.

“The north-west WA region, during any typical wet season, will see about four to five tropical cyclones,” she said.

“But with this coming wet season, there is an 80 per cent chance of seeing [numbers] below average, so below that four to five number of cyclones.

“However, it only takes one tropical low or tropical cyclone to bring rainfall or cause damage.”