La Nina summer drives wild weather in Warrnambool as severe weather warnings issued

The Bureau of Meteorology this morning issued a warning for damaging winds for the south-west region, while SES are urging campers in coastal areas to be cautious and prepared.

Meteorologist Miriam Bradbury said the severe weather was due to a low-pressure trough sitting across the state.

"The trough that's sitting across Victoria is actually tapping into tropical moisture from ex-tropical cyclone Seth," she said.

"Even though it's not anywhere far south enough to be near Victoria, this low pressure trough is managing to drag down moisture, giving these storms the potential to dump rain really quickly."

She said thunderstorms were generally more intense in summer, with the impact of La Nina this year worsening conditions.

"Most of the thunderstorms we see during the summer are in our warmer seasons and the reason for that in short is that there's more heat in the atmosphere," she said.

"It's easier to get those storms to develop. We need certain ingredients to get thunderstorms and warm weather is one of them most of the time.

"Where flooding is concerned, the way that's linked to thunderstorms is if the storm grows very big and powerful and taps into a lot of atmospheric energy, it can reach a severe threshold.

"We have very specific parameters for a severe storm and one of them is causing severe rainfall which causes flash flooding.

"There are certain things that can impact that. One big one this summer is actually La Nina, the climate driver. It's a bit of a mysterious influence in that its really difficult to say 'this thunderstorm was because of La Nina'.

"In a La Nina summer we generally see an increased likelihood of getting above average rainfall, increased flooding and we also see an increase of getting things like tropical cyclones."

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She said flooding was difficult to predict, but the impact of La Nina presented similar conditions this time last year.

"For example, the flooding event in Warrnambool in January last year - we also had a La Nina summer," she said.

"So it was another summer under the influence of this climate driver and it's a very similar summer that we're seeing this year as well.

"It's not a direct link between the one and the other, it's just a very similar set up. Those storms had the potential, these storms have the potential.

"But as is unfortunately the nature of storms they're also very mysterious creatures in that it's really difficult to pinpoint exactly when and where they're going to develop."

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