La Nina eases but El Nino concerns remain as the Macleay enters autumn

The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) has predicted that La Nina is likely near its end with ocean indicators returning to neutral levels.

BOM Senior Climatologist Hugh McDowell said that we should be back to neutral levels once La Nina has eased.

"Coming back towards normal...average weather is what we're expecting over the short term," he said.

"It should look like average Australian weather for Kempsey which is a few showers at times."

La Nina, part of the cycle known as the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) has seen plenty of wet weather that has damaged communities not just in the Mid North Coast but also across Australia

The impacts of the rain due to the weather phenomenon has also presented a concern for firefighters.

"With all the rain that we have had, it has increased the amount of growth for grass and forest," NSW RFS Lower North Coast Acting District Coordinator Jamie Laws said.

"Once [the vegetation] starts to dry out, in particular during winter, the amount of leaves that start to fall in autumn create additional risks as far as fuel loads on the ground," he said.

"The frosts across winter dry out the fuel a lot faster, remove all that moisture from the grass and fuel so it does increase the potential for fires to carry across the landscape and pose a bigger risk."

Mr Laws said that the weather is constantly being watched and said it would be concern if Australia started to enter into a state of El Nino.

As La Nina eases, there are concerns that Australia could see the return of El Nino later this year.

The other weather phenomenon often brings warmer temperatures, bushfires and drought to Australia.

"The forecast at the moment is for [the climate] to return to neutral and then the longer term signal in a lot of the climate models at the moment is for El Nino to develop later in the year," Mr McDowell said.

But the autumn predictability barrier has made further predictions difficult.

As the climate 'resets' itself during this time of the year, it's harder to determine what weather Australia can expect to see after autumn.

"We see less of a difference in the atmosphere that would tip La Nina or El Nino one way or the other," Mr McDowell said.

"It only takes a...little driver either way to tip it one way or the to other or to keep it in neutral.

So you can kind of say it's more open to random chaos in the autumn period."

Despite the difficulty presented by the autumn predictability barrier, there still is a likelihood that El Nino could return.

Drivers like weaker trade winds or warmer than average sea surface temperatures in the Southern Pacific Ocean are some of the indicators that meteorologist will be looking for to see if El Nino is likely to return.

But historic examples also play a role in their predictions.

"When there have been double..[or] triple La Ninas in the past, often we have flipped to El Nino," Mr McDowell said.

"Not in all cases...[but] there is a chance there and there's signals in the climate models we should be aware of."

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