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Kids These Days

A girl in black with a raincloud over her head leaves a room with two kids ankle-deep in water. One says, 'If you think La Nina was bad, just wait 'til you meet her brother'. A flaming boy called 'El Nino' looks in the window.

For Australia, abnormal weather patterns associated with sea surface temperatures across the central Pacific Ocean have a large impact on climate variability. Like the children in Fiona Katauskas’s cartoon, Australia received two unwanted visitors close together. The first was the La Niña weather pattern, associated with high rainfall and floods. It was not long over before the Bureau of Meteorology predicted that El Niño was on its way, bringing high temperatures and droughts.