2022 will go down as one of the wettest years on record for Victoria. The year started with an active La Niña over summer, which lingered into May. There was a brief reset of the climate drivers over winter before the forecast -IOD event started up in August, followed by the return of another La Niña event in spring. The forecasts were indicating high odds for a wet spring and this time they delivered. Adding to the particularly wet spring was a predominately +SAM, as well as extremely warm waters to the north of Australia. It was the third year in a row of an active La Niña. This is quite rare, happening only twice before (1973–75 and 1998–2000), in the 62 years since reliable records have been available. It is also the first time since 1960 that we have had two consecutive -IOD events. The tables below show how growing season rainfall (April–October) in 2022 compared to the previous nine years (Table 1).
