i looked into this a few months ago.

i could very well be wrong but i believe la nina years mean warmer NW WA temps as the hotter waters in the northeast of australia push towards NW WA. that ultimately means more lows and cyclones off WA which can move south towards perth along warmer waters due to a stronger leeuwin current. or something like that. basically, a disruption to the WA trough that is responsible for the seabreezes

combined with hotter indian ocean temps and it's all bad news.

mind you i also thought la nina meant awesome winds for the east coast and that hasn't really kicked off so who knows.

i editted my post so it makes a little more sense.

i stumbled across it while trying to figure out winter weather patterns in SEQ. i think the bom has this season in WA with 50-60% chance of higher than average rainfall which ties into your comments.

bit odd over here though. la nina should provide more lows in the coral sea and that hasn't really panned out. cyclones for us are good. lots of strong SE winds south of lows give us great seasons. this year bom guessed 7 cyclones which would have meant a bumper season. so far only one cyclone and it was a dud, except for flooding of biblical proportions and destroying central queensland with water.

maybe we are going to have a bumper next few months?

means el nino years are good years to visit WA maybe

Isn't La Nina just a reversing of the Indian Ocean currents so that would be it Aus1111

Maybe explains why it has more impact on WA than over east too?

When its not raining it hasn't been bad here this season.I've only been back into it the last 2 seasons but Im pretty sure this one is better than last year.

..... and the doldrums in QLD are back, at least I had one decent sail last week !!

We've had a good seasons so far this summer in Sydney. Much better than last year or the year before. I distinctly remember good winds for the summer of 2009/2010 till Christmas Eve then nothing for what felt like the next three months. However this summer we have had a week of excellent wind since Christmas so its already better.

If this is La Nina then bring her on. Build more dams to capture the water. Release the water when its dry. More dams means more spots to windsurf too.

Windxtasy said...

I'm missing the regular seabreezes, but I'm glad we don't have floods!

Floods?! Looxury. When I was lad we had bush fire every morning and flood at night. If we weren't stamping out fires with our bare feet we were stricken with fungus. When the fungus caught alight we were hopping around til it were quenched at nightfall.