This handout photograph taken on November 14, 2022 and released by New South Wales State Emergency Service SES shows officials working in rescue work in the flooded towns around the overflowing Wyangala Dam near Cowra. The Bureau of Meteorology of Australia issued a analysis of Australia's climate and weather events during 2022, saying that the country has a wetter and warmer than average 2022.
According to the climate report, Australia's national mean temperature was 0.5 degrees Celsius warmer than the 1961 -- 1990 average, making 2022 the 22nd-warmest year on record since national temperature records began in 1910.
Annual maximum temperatures were above average for most of northern Australia, Tasmania and parts of the west coast, while annual minimum temperatures were above or very much above average for most of Australia.
The rainfall was 26 percent higher than the 1961 -- 1990 annual average, making 2022 the ninth-wettest year on record since the national rainfall dataset began in 1900.
Spring in 2022 was the second-wettest on record for Australia and the wettest on record for the Murray-Darling Basin, New South Wales and Victoria.
The report noted that rainfall was very above average for the south-eastern quarter of the mainland, where persistent rain saw significant flooding affecting large areas multiple times during the year.
Among the main climate influences active during 2022 was La Nina, which persisted through summer 2021 - 22, dissipated during autumn, then re-emerged in early September and continued through the end of 2022.
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It is only the fourth time that three La Nina events have been observed in the Bureau record.