Understanding El Niño: What Makes It (Not) Rain in Adelaide?
About this Event
Talks on Tuesdays is a live event series bringing big ideas, real experts, and curious minds together - at your favourite local venues. Think thought-provoking lectures, audience questions, and post-talk mingling over drinks and dinner.
This isn’t a uni lecture. It’s a social, intelligent night out.Come alone or with friends, leave with something to talk about.
Event Schedule:
6.30pm Arrival & Doors Open
7pm Lecuture Starts
7.45pm Q&A
8pm Talk Concludes
8.30pm Event Closes.
*Please arrive close to 6.30pm
A La Carte menu and full bar available throughout the night - pay as you go.
Your Topic:
Understanding El Niño: What Makes It (Not) Rain in Adelaide?
Hearing that an El Niño is on the way can make people worry about drought. But does an El Niño event truly herald dry weather to come in Adelaide?
This talk will dive into what causes variations in Adelaide’s seasonal rainfall – for example, why some winters are wetter and others are drier, and whether or not an El Niño event truly guarantees hot and dry weather. We will learn what an El Niño event actually is, and also examine some other big climate features that affect Adelaide’s rainfall just as much as El Niño but aren’t as popular with the media – like the Indian Ocean Dipole and the subtropical ridge. We will also talk about how climate change is affecting Adelaide’s rainfall.
After this talk, you will be able to impress your friends with pithy statements whether or not we’re likely have a hot and/or dry spring and summer, and how far in advance those sorts of statements can (accurately) be made.
Your Speaker:
Dr Georgy Falster is a climate scientist at Adelaide University. Her work brings together information from weather observations, climate model simulations, and natural archives of long-term climate like tree rings and ice cores, for a holistic understanding of the climate and how it is changing. She is particularly interested in how the water cycle is changing because of climate change, including effects to Australian droughts.
Agenda
🕑: 06:30 PM
Doors open and arrival
🕑: 07:00 PM
Speaker starts
Where is it happening?
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
AUD 27.78



















