This year, the La Niña weather pattern brought with it record-breaking rain and devastating floods to southern Queensland and northern NSW and data has emerged from the US Climate Prediction Centre which indicates that La Niña just hasn’t had enough of us.

It came as Brisbane was blanketed by fog this morning as warmer temperatures hit the city with forecasts of 24 degrees today, ending the cold snap that has affected the east coast for several days.

A Bureau of Meteorology warning said that “reduced visibility in fog will make road conditions dangerous this morning in the Brisbane Area.”

“We will see those fog patches moving in most mornings through to the end of the weekend, maybe even into next week,” said BOM forecaster Brooke Pagel.

Heavy fog over Kangaroo Point made the Brisbane CBD invisible for some residents. (Photo: James Frostick)

The Climate Prediction Centre forecast predicts that La Niña is about a 50 per cent chance of continuing throughout the southern hemisphere winter.

The chances of it continuing through to our spring increased to 60 per cent.

Weatherzone said that since 1950, three consecutive La Niña seasons have only occurred twice, one from 1973 to 1976 and the other from 1998 to 2001

“However, the current La Niña signal is much stronger than it was at the same point in those two triple-La Niña events,” it said.

“Towards the end of the year, the probability of La Niña drops to around 50 percent in the Southern Hemisphere summer and even lower in early 2023. 

“This outlook is in line with predictions made by several other international organisations, with four of the seven international forecast models surveyed by the Bureau of Meteorology predict La Niña conditions in October this year.

“These outlooks imply that the Pacific Ocean will most likely be in either a weak La Niña pattern, or a La Niña-like pattern, throughout most of 2022.

“Given we have just seen two La Niñas in two years, this increases the likelihood of the first triple consecutive La Niña event in around two decades.

“With two La Niña seasons already in the bag and the prospect of a third La Niña now a looming possibility, this is likely to have a compounding effect that may exacerbate the impacts we normally see in Australia. 

“So, while individual La Niña events usually cause more rain and flooding in northern and eastern Australia, any La Niña-fuelled rainfall this year will be falling onto already saturated ground and into full dams. This makes flooding a heightened risk, especially for areas that just had a wet summer and autumn.”